Dry yeast packs vs. vialed yeast

[Meatyboy]

I'm still waiting for my brew kit to arrive in the mail. While I'm doing that I'm looking at extract kits to keep me busy. I'm looking at Austin Homebrew and I have to ask the pros and cons of ordering the dry yeast packs vs. the yeast in the vials. I know the vials all you gotta do is get the temps down then pitch. The dry yeast packages I'm curious how you get them started, and if it's possible to make a package last longer than one pitch (sorta like use a little out of it, build a nice yeast colony then pitch). Any input would be appreciated.

 

[IXVolt]

Depending on your kit, but I'm pretty sure all the liquid yeast vials require a starter. Their cell count is just too low for a standard batch. The dry however is pitch able as-is.

 

[Maddoghoek]

All yeast you want to get the temps down to pitch, regardless of dry or vial. Dry yeast you can pitch as is or re-hydrate before pitching. Vials and smack packs you can make a starter and pitch the slurry or just pitch them direct as well. People do both and get good results using either method.
If you check out the FAQ sticky at the top there's some good info on yeast there.

 

[hercher]

I strongly recommend a starter with the vial -- there's just no way of knowing how well the yeast has been stored and thus you don't know the viability.

As far as making your yeast last longer, you can always harvest the yeast out of the fermenter. There is an excellent thread on washing yeast. You can also pitch a new batch of beer right onto the yeast cake in your fermenter, with excellent results.

 

[stratslinger]

One thing folks haven't yet touched on is that there's a far greater variety of liquid yeast than there is of dry yeast. There's maybe half a dozen dry yeast varieties - and many of those are the same strain, different manufacturers, while there are literally dozens of liquid yeast strains.

Yes, liquid strains require a little more work to pitch properly - but you can get much more varied results due to the broad variety available.

Folks have already suggested this, but not quantified it... So here goes: A typical dry yeast pouch has in it roughly 200-300 billion yeast cells. A typical vial or smack pack of liquid yeast has 100 billion cells at the time of packaging. Due to how they're packaged, dry yeast cells tend to stay viable longer than those in liquid packs. So, a vial or smack pack, on its own, on the day it's packaged, is ideal to ferment a beer around 1.040 or 1.060 OG, depending on which source you read and believe. The longer you go out from the packaging date, the more that number goes down, which is why most folks around here strongly suggest using starters with liquid yeast - especially if you're doing a big beer, or don't know ahead of time the age or storage conditions of your yeast. Dry yeast, as far as I know, will stay viable for a long time - and as long as you rehydrate properly, you're going to be pitching most of those 200-300 billion cells every time, so you should get a good healthy pitch.

 

[HangLoose]

I strongly recommend a starter with the vial -- there's just no way of knowing how well the yeast has been stored and thus you don't know the viability.

As far as making your yeast last longer, you can always harvest the yeast out of the fermenter. There is an excellent thread on washing yeast. You can also pitch a new batch of beer right onto the yeast cake in your fermenter, with excellent results.

I too have great results here but be careful with your temps if you do this, as the fermentation is likely to be hot and heavy.