Dry Yeast Starter?

[c8h12n4o3]

I've read some conflicting information in the forums. Some say, don't make a starter for dry yeast? Some say do. Is this a bucket vs carboy type argument?

 

[mikeysab]

i think some people say don't use a starter with dry yeast because dry is so cheap and contains more cells than liquid yeast. But like everything else, you'll get many different schools of thought on this one. A lot of people say always use a starter because it ensures yeast viability, which is a good reason to make one. Then there's people that make starters because it keeps costs down. I'm in the middle of building a stir starter, so I'm going to use starters from now on. I just switched to a 20 gallon BK, and I"m going to be making 12 to 15 gallon batches, so it just makes more sense to build my army rather than buy it. Hope any of that helps

 

[malkore]

No, there are definite reasons to, or not to.

Most of the time, your typical 10gram (give or take) will have sufficient colonies that you need no starter. There are benefits to rehydrating, or proofing the yeast. And some brands like Fermentis have some specific instructions on rehydrating their strains for pitching.

That said, if you were brewing something big, you could do a starter, or simply pitch two packets. Depends on the price...nottingham is cheap but my LHBS wants almost 7 bucks for some of the fermentis strains.

when in doubt, hit www.mrmalty.com and use the yeast pitching calculator. its good for dry and liquid calculations.

My personal experience: I've been dry pitching, then oxygenating for a while now, and have noted acetyladehyde in most of my beers. I'm going to change things up, so my two cents would be to hydrate with plain, sanitized water first, with some yeast nutrient, oxygenate the wort, then pitch...making sure you're pitching an optimal amount.

Follow that up with rigid fermentation temperature control, and that should eliminate 'yeast' as the problem in any beer you make that develops an off-flavor. But hopefully your beers will come out perfect

 

[JNye]

from MrMalty.com

Some exciting work has been done on dry yeast lately. Reports are coming in of better quality, cleaner dry yeast. Personally, I really prefer the liquid yeasts, but the lure of dry yeast is strong. The biggest benefit is that it is cheap and does not require a starter. In fact, with most dry yeasts, placing them in a starter would just deplete the reserves that the yeast manufacturer worked so hard to build into the yeast. Most dry yeast has an average cell density of 20 billion cells per gram. You would need about 9.5 grams of dry yeast if you were pitching into 5.5 gallons of 1.048 wort to get the proper cell counts. (Recently there have been other numbers mentioned for cells/gram of dry yeast and folks have asked me why I believe there are 20 billion cells. I've actually done cell counts on dry yeast and they're always 20 billion per gram +/- less than a billion. Dr. Clayton Cone has also stated that there are 20 billion per gram, and other folks I trust tell me that 20 billion is correct. Until I see something different, practical experience tells me this number is correct.) For dry yeasts, just do a proper rehydration in tap water, do not do a starter.

http://www.mrmalty.com/pitching.php

 

[c8h12n4o3]

Thanks guys. Mrmalty.com is a pretty cool site. When I first began brewing, I think fermentation tempurature was something I ignored. Until i build a cooler, I think I'll give the swamp cooler a couple of trys.