Drying yeast

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jrgtr42

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I was reading a back issue of BYO magazine the other day and one of the articles mentioned sending dried flakes of yeast to someone else, that they last a good long time (presumably like packaged dry yeast.)
I was thinking about that, if that would work for storing yeast strains, as opposed to washing, glycerine and freezing them.
Has anyone tried / done this and how would it work? What would be the procedure for drying yeast once racked off.
 
...how would it work?
In a word: it wouldn't. It's taken the industry lots of time and effort to make dried yeast work, if it were so simple that you could do it in your kitchen than nobody would have to pay good money for it.
 
In a word: it wouldn't. It's taken the industry lots of time and effort to make dried yeast work, if it were so simple that you could do it in your kitchen than nobody would have to pay good money for it.
And that's kind of my point. The article was talking about a homebrewer sending this out. This was in the July - August 2020 copy of BYO, talking about a Norweigan homebrewer sending "flakes of dried Kveik [yeast] loosely wrapped in plastic."
 
In a word: it wouldn't. It's taken the industry lots of time and effort to make dried yeast work, if it were so simple that you could do it in your kitchen than nobody would have to pay good money for it.
Lol what? Uhhh, Norwegians have literally been doing this incredibly successfully for hundreds of years. In dirty, unsanitary farm houses.

It could be unique to kveik (though honestly I doubt it), but you can 100% dry your own yeast. I literally did it last night, using a dehydrator. Just go on YouTube and search "dry kveik" or "dry your own yeast."

Kveik itself is a great lesson that industrial, technologically advanced production is not the ONLY way to successfully brew beer and interact with yeast. Homebrewers don't need to imitate industry.
 
Yeast does not equal Kveik. Although apparently for more and more homebrewers this appears to be the case...

Try doing that with ale yeast or, even better, with lager yeast and then report back on how that next fermentation with home-dried yeast actually goes.

Homebrewers don't need to imitate industry.

So homebrewers can actually make beer with 100% dead yeast? Cool... ;)
 
Yeast does not equal Kveik.
🤣 Not any more than a rectangle "equals" a square, my friend.

Try doing that with ale yeast or, even better, with lager yeast and then report back on how that next fermentation with home-dried yeast actually goes.
Not a problem, bud. People have even done it on this very site. Unless of course you want to argue "ale yeast does not equal WLP090."

So homebrewers can actually make beer with 100% dead yeast? Cool... ;)
😂 😂 😂 lol ziiiiing!
 
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But all hilarity aside, any yeast drying that you do (besides farmhouse yeasts like kveik) should be treated as "experimental." As evident from Vale71's visceral reaction, it's clearly not something that is commonly practiced in the homebrewing community. It is a bit of untested water, so to speak.

So if you have any precious yeast, I wouldn't dry it all out and rely on that. Think of it as secondary/emergency storage or just something you do for fun. But if you have extra yeast, it is not going to hurt you to TRY something. If you don't have extra, just make a small starter then use the yeast you get from that.
Jesus, from people's responses to the idea of drying yeast (both here and across the site in general) you'd think it was similar to murdering puppies.

Here are some videos to use as guides:



Also, when rehydrating yeast, always use Go Ferm if you want good results, and always make a starter first. That way you can taste the starter wort and see if it's bad/infected or not. Although drying kveik doesn't seem to pose a big infection risk (some Norwegian farmers would regularly scrape bird **** off the dried kveik ring they use), I can only imagine it's more risky with yeast that aren't traditionally dried. But again, just taste the starter wort and feel free to explore. Experimenting is half the fun of homebrewing!
 
i've always assumed if i keep the temp below like 100f when it's wet, it would work? kinda like malting and enzymes needed to be "frozen" or not mobile. before kilning... but i tried it once, and was disapointed with the quantity. it looks so much better when i just save the wet yeast cake.

i'd dry it on a sheet pan with a fan blow room temp air. untill it feels crisp, then maybe finish it in a low oven see how that goes. maybe just leave the oven light on or something like that. should be good for freezing also after that.
 
you know being i like having things to talk about. next batch when i collect my yeast cake, i'm going to put it on a baking sheet with a box fan. and try to repitch it.

edit: if takes off fermenting quick, i'd say the yeast is alive. and if it still flocc's like i want, i'd call it a win!
 
Yeah, without a dehydrator, it's a bit tricky. You both want airflow in order to dry it, but you presumably want to minimize the amount of microbes that land on it too. Also, you want to make sure you don't burn the yeast either.

I spread my yeast cake on parchment paper in the dehydrator and it ended up looking like.... well, flaky nutritional yeast, I guess? Lol. I believe that spreading the yeast out INCREDIBLY thin on the sheet helps it dry much quicker. And that presumably helps minimize potential infections?
 
i could dry it in my glove box, with my D.O.E. HEPA filter...but really if i just scoop it out of the fermenter now, put it in the fridge in tuperware container. if i don't get sour beer now, i doubt just having the box fan blowing on it for a day would f it up anymore.
 
Not a problem, bud. People have even done it on this very site. Unless of course you want to argue "ale yeast does not equal WLP090."
Nope. But I will argue that drying yeast for later pitching (you know, like the dried yeast packs you buy from your LHBS...) is a completely different beast than drying some yeast and then later trying to resurrect it by starting with a single cell culture. With the former, you need very high viability to achieve correct pitching rates. With the latter, all you need is one single cell to come back to life and there is a good chance you will succeed unless you really messed up the drying.

I was under the impression we were discussing the first type of process. Apparently I either misunderstood (the expression "presumably like packaged dry yeast" probably misled me) or the topic got changed at some point and I must have missed it...
 
Yowzer! That's a bit pricey for these experiments, lol. But it DOES seem like it could be useful for all sorts of yeast management techniques...
Also the HEPA filter is kind of genius. If they can pull COVID out of the air, I doubt any bacteria or mold is getting through. You could even just strap one to a box-fan or something.
 
Yeast does not equal Kveik. Although apparently for more and more homebrewers this appears to be the case...

Try doing that with ale yeast or, even better, with lager yeast and then report back on how that next fermentation with home-dried yeast actually goes.



So homebrewers can actually make beer with 100% dead yeast? Cool... ;)
Kveik IS yeast, it belongs to S. Cerevisiae and it belongs to the genetic group "Beer 1" like many other strains, saison yeast in the other hand is classified in the group Beer 2 which is closer to wine yeast

So not only kveik is yeast, but it's closer to your regular ale yeast than saison is

Yes it's a yeast with different qualities but all the yeasts are different, and yes it's heavily related within each other but that doesn't make it less yeast, it's just that they belong to the same family or group of strains. I'm more closely related to my family than to you, but that doesn't mean that we aren't both humans, the same with kveik.

With that said, most yeasts can't be dried at home, but there isn't much experimentation with it so there might be some strains that can and we don't know yet or maybe only kveik can
 
You could even just strap one to a box-fan or something.


with my much smaller DOE HEPA filter, i still have to use a pretty beefy blower to get any sterile air out of it. but it works, i can leave a petri with nutrient rich agar open in it for a day, seal it up inside with some parafilm, and it will still be a clean plate many months later....figure, it'd be a good way to dry yeast. but in my case, i'd be willing to just try drying with cool air flow.


when i dry my malt, it only takes a day with the box fan to get it firm enough to kiln.

of course, now i'm thinking about it. bleach doesn't kill fungus. maybe drying it in my glove box and adding a drop or something of bleach would keep pure, and evaporate with the water?


(but i'm set for yeast right now, got 500g's baynus i've been repitching! lol)

and this is pretty much what i use for growing mushrooms. but i got a 2pack for $40 20 years ago. and a free blower to push air through the one i use.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/NIB-AAF-As...791898?hash=item1a2d84415a:g:3K4AAOSwPCVX~Eoz
 
as i was putting my HEPA filter away, i realized tyvek USPS envelopes also could work for drying sterile. good for covering lids on mason jars when growing grain spawn, so i'd imagine they'd dry out yeast, leting gas pass. but not anything too big pass through to get an infection.

dump your yeast cake in a tyvek mailling envelope seal it up and put it in outside in the sun till dry.

at any just some ideas for the OP.

(and it's been a while, but i remember rehydrating dried mushrooms, and getting them to grow out and fruit)
 
as i was putting my HEPA filter away, i realized tyvek USPS envelopes also could work for drying sterile. good for covering lids on mason jars when growing grain spawn, so i'd imagine they'd dry out yeast, leting gas pass. but not anything too big pass through to get an infection.

dump your yeast cake in a tyvek mailling envelope seal it up and put it in outside in the sun till dry.

at any just some ideas for the OP.

(and it's been a while, but i remember rehydrating dried mushrooms, and getting them to grow out and fruit)
Spores are really hardy, that's why you have to take canned meats to at least 250, to kill botulism spores. Can't do that on the stove top without a pressure cooker, but I always wondered why you can't dry ale yeast. In the old days they either used trub or stirred every batch with the same stick (or something). Of course they were not aware of the process and were in no way using one strain of yeast to ferment their beers. :mug:
 
Nope. But I will argue that drying yeast for later pitching (you know, like the dried yeast packs you buy from your LHBS...) is a completely different beast than drying some yeast and then later trying to resurrect it by starting with a single cell culture. With the former, you need very high viability to achieve correct pitching rates. With the latter, all you need is one single cell to come back to life and there is a good chance you will succeed unless you really messed up the drying

Good point, I think you're entirely right. But I feel like this is the miracle of always using a starter: even those ... more janky methods of yeast wrangling can work. Plus, you get a chance to test (usually by taste) how it worked before pitching it.
 
In a word: it wouldn't. It's taken the industry lots of time and effort to make dried yeast work, if it were so simple that you could do it in your kitchen than nobody would have to pay good money for it.
You could make the same argument for malt vs. malt extract. If you could mash in your kitchen,,,, wait, many do. Probably more appropriate would be comparing to buying malt vs. malting your own. Most of us buy malt, but some like to experiment, take it a bit further. Maybe to say they did that... It is a hobby, some of us will go the extra mile for the "because it is there" experience. Others will opt for convenience or time savings because that fits their life better. To each their own.
 
Most of us buy malt, but some like to experiment, take it a bit further. Maybe to say they did that..


i learned a process of malting my own, for sustainability. like james bond/homebrewer, and spectre/inbev...

if some people want to dry yeast. :mug: when the labs start charging $100 a pack for it, they'll be glad they learned how to!
 
Would you still be doing that if 99,9% of your kernels died during the malting process leaving you with just a handful of usable kernels? Because that is what you'll get if you try and dry your yeast at home.
 
You could make the same argument for malt vs. malt extract. If you could mash in your kitchen,,,, wait, many do. Probably more appropriate would be comparing to buying malt vs. malting your own. Most of us buy malt, but some like to experiment, take it a bit further. Maybe to say they did that... It is a hobby, some of us will go the extra mile for the "because it is there" experience. Others will opt for convenience or time savings because that fits their life better. To each their own.
Apples and oranges comparison. Malting your own has quality and consistency issues but the yield is still much higher than 0,1%. If it weren't hen people would have quit trying a long time ago.

BTW do you know why commercially available dry yeast has so few availale strains as opposed to liquid yeast?
 
Would you still be doing that if 99,9% of your kernels died during the malting process leaving you with just a handful of usable kernels? Because that is what you'll get if you try and dry your yeast at home.


LOL, i think i allready said next batch i'm going to try my box fan method. i'm pretty sure as long as the temp doesn't get over 100f, the yeast will, dry up nicley. i'm not saying they'll be 'pure' with a box fan. but i'm pretty sure they'll be viable, but a challenge accepted it is! ;) you know i got my yeast cake saved from last, batch in a container. i post a pic of how i'll attempt this, because i don't plan on brewing until friday.....lol, see how it goes!
 
It'll end with you having a ton of dead yeast. You better learn how to make Marmite. Unless you already know, that is. Knowing you, I wouldn't be overly suprised if you'd already tried that too... ;)
 
here are some pics of me just put the yeast on the dish and, my cool air flow to dry. :mug:

yeast trub.jpg


yeast cake, dumped in a sheet pan.

acceptedandinprogress.jpg


box fan on high on top of it.....(the game is, is it viable right? if not, you'll need one of those laminar flow HEPA's to do this and keep it pure)
 
My parents are New Zealanders and I remember them having Marmite in the house on occasion, but then the vegimite song came out and made it famous. I always thought it was nasty!!! LOL
 
My parents are New Zealanders and I remember them having Marmite in the house on occasion, but then the vegimite song came out and made it famous. I always thought it was nasty!!! LOL


yeast is so nutritous though!

if people liked eating yeast there would have never been a problem with 'beri beri'....
 
Would you still be doing that if 99,9% of your kernels died during the malting process leaving you with just a handful of usable kernels? Because that is what you'll get if you try and dry your yeast at home.
You keep on saying stuff like this, but have you or anyone you know even tested it? Where are you getting your 99% number? I think if you actually had any knowledge or experience in the matter, you'd have mentioned something by now, lol. It seems like your whole argument is: "Well if it's not a lucrative commercial and fully industrialized process, it must ever work!" If you HAVE any insights based on experience, you should share that instead of coming across as a curmudgeon.

Internet arguments that go along the lines of "If it's not common or ubiquitous, it must be bad!" really piss me off. What do people gain by shooting things down? Even IF the internet nay-sayers end up being technically right in the end?

LOL i thought it was vegemite?
I think Marmite is New Zealand, and Vegemite is from Australia. But I looked it up and apparently the ORIGINAL Marmite is slightly different and still exists in Europe? Yuck to all of it though.
 
You keep on saying stuff like this, but have you or anyone you know even tested it? Where are you getting your 99% number? I think if you actually had any knowledge or experience in the matter, you'd have mentioned something by now, lol. It seems like your whole argument is: "Well if it's not a lucrative commercial and fully industrialized process, it must ever work!" If you HAVE any insights based on experience, you should share that instead of coming across as a curmudgeon.

Internet arguments that go along the lines of "If it's not common or ubiquitous, it must be bad!" really piss me off. What do people gain by shooting things down? Even IF the internet nay-sayers end up being technically right in the end?


I think Marmite is New Zealand, and Vegemite is from Australia. But I looked it up and apparently the ORIGINAL Marmite is slightly different and still exists in Europe? Yuck to all of it though.


well my yeast drying experiment is almost done, it seemed to develop a shell/crust on it, i pulled 1.1grams of what was already dry and added it to a spoonful of flour in water, that was 30 seconds ago. it looks like it's already starting to bubble though, it's 5? or 10 minutes to prove yeast?

and it still wasn't really dry but pretty close allready after just these few hours.....just with the box fan...
 
well i think vale has this one, he'd have to explain his reasoning to me. this did not proof itself. (besides mear mortals, just will never reach the level of a yeast lab that is! ;))
 
it is kinda bubbling and it was onlt 1 gram....i'll have to try again when the rest is dry, and i can try it with 7 grams....
 
I have to go and work on a really cool logo, that is what sells this stuff. Oh, and it will use "sterile dehydration media, sold separately" Also know as coffee filters. You have to establish a long term revenue stream after all

once again i have you beat! the in line HEPA filters for my conical add-on are going to kick coffee filter ass! ;)
 
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