Drying yeast

[bracconiere]

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'....

 

[AntDoctor]

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.

 

[bracconiere]

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...

 

[bracconiere]

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! )

 

[bracconiere]

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....

 

[TheBluePhantom]

What we need to do is to is work out a decent process, make small dehydrators, and sell them to homebrewers. We already know they will buy every darn gizmo in existence. We can call it Mr Yeast

 

[bracconiere]

Mr Yeast

if that's what you plan on calling your's...i'm calling mine the Fun Guy Saver, lol

edit: and mine will be an add-on module for these fancy conicals!

 

[TheBluePhantom]

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

 

[bracconiere]

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!

 

[bracconiere]

welp, i just added 10 grams of the dried yeast to the flour water....not a bubble yet.

 

[bracconiere]

i added a bit of baker's yeast to it, and it proofed. so to me that prooves vale right...but i want more info why. i know freezeing cause ice crystal to punchture cell wals, but i'm not sure why room temp drying would ruin viability?

 

[Stormcrow]

i added a bit of baker's yeast to it, and it proofed. so to me that prooves vale right...but i want more info why. i know freezeing cause ice crystal to punchture cell wals, but i'm not sure why room temp drying would ruin viability?

Very interesting. And thanks for being willing to try that out for us.

 

[AntDoctor]

Interesting, interesting! Also uh, why did you add it to flour water instead of a starter?

 

[bracconiere]

Interesting, interesting! Also uh, why did you add it to flour water instead of a starter?

i wanted more gluten for bubbles? more indication of fermentation..but i didn't really get any...even with the dried 10 gram addition...but when i added the baker's yeast it took off..if you want pictures i was drinking and dind't take, them, but for the cost of a few cents of electricity, and a yeast trub try it yourself. i want vale to explain why it doesn't work! i thought it would! i know freezing causes ice crystal that burst cell walls but wouldn't have thought a box fan at room temp would damge yeast? they grow on apples and stuff in the air?

 

[Miraculix]

welp, i just added 10 grams of the dried yeast to the flour water....not a bubble yet.

Maybe starch isn't the best medium for a yeast that eats sugars?

 

[Vale71]

i added a bit of baker's yeast to it, and it proofed. so to me that prooves vale right...but i want more info why. i know freezeing cause ice crystal to punchture cell wals, but i'm not sure why room temp drying would ruin viability?

The drying process damages the cell membrane. Since the cell membrane (and its transport mechanisms) is the cell's interface to the outside world this results in a huge decrease of viability. Only by adding preservatives (mostly polysaccharides) to the cell prior to drying it has there been limited success in drying yeast without killing off most of the cells. The result is limited because each strain reacts differently to the process and only a limited number of strains give acceptable results. Lager yeasts have proven to be the most difficult and only recently has it become possible to succesfully dry lager yeasts. This is the reason why the available selection of dry yeasts is rather limited compared to liquid yeast. It's not that yeast manufacturers are lazy, it's just that many strains do not give acceptable results when dried.
Then there's the whole storage issue. Dry yeast is extremely higroscopic. If the moisture level increases beyond a certain point the cell becomes alive. If it's not pitched in a suitable medium it becomes dead shortly thereafter. Vacuum packaging can help but modified atmosphere packaging is really the way to go. That's the reason why you should always use a whole packet of dry yeast once opened.
All of the above is beyond the reach of most homebrewers. Acquiring the equipment and the chemiclas to perform that at home might be possible but would be insanely expensive or in other words simply not worth it.

 

[Syke]

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.

Here's an actual test. 50% viability at 6 months old dry.

http://suigenerisbrewing.com/index.php/2019/08/28/drying-kveik-the-grand-finale/

 

[Vale71]

And what about something else than Kveik? The impression that for many homebrewers there exists nothing but Kveik becomes stronger and stronger...

 

[Vale71]

LOL i thought it was vegemite?

Vegemite is the Aussie knock-off. Marmite is the original British product. Legend has it that it was invented as a way of disposing of old yeast that breweries had to pay to properly dispose of. IMHO they both taste equally disgusting...

 

[cmac62]

welp, i just added 10 grams of the dried yeast to the flour water....not a bubble yet.

did you put any sugar in there?

 

[Vale71]

Ever heard of leavened bread?

 

[Miraculix]

No.

 

[bracconiere]

did you put any sugar in there?

after it didn't proof at first i did add some sugar to see if that would get it to take off, still a no go. but after the hour or so, i added baker's yeast and within a minute it was foamy.


this expirement i did was done with repitched wine yeast i've been repitching in beer for a few months. but i know if i pitch the liquid version it would have proofed.


(and like i said the reason i've never really tried before, besides for nutrional reasons, is out of 2 cups of yeast cake i got 20 grams of dried unviable yeast. and 20 grams of yeast just really doesn't look like much. )

 

[bracconiere]

i will bow out with the statement, it's really not a hard thing to try for yourself. or expensive. you saw how i dried it, next time you brew just spread the yeast on a pan and put a box fan over it. it dried my yeast in just a couple hours. but allass the yeast was dead

 

[cmac62]

i will bow out with the statement, it's really not a hard thing to try for yourself. or expensive. you saw how i dried it, next time you brew just spread the yeast on a pan and put a box fan over it. it dried my yeast in just a couple hours. but allass the yeast was dead

Supposedly it does work with kveik yeast, but I have not yet tried it. Liquid is so easy to keep in jars in the fridge.

 

[bracconiere]

Liquid is so easy to keep in jars in the fridge.

agreed

 

[AntDoctor]

Here's an actual test. 50% viability at 6 months old dry.

http://suigenerisbrewing.com/index.php/2019/08/28/drying-kveik-the-grand-finale/

Hell yeah! This **** is GREAT! I adore seeing these kinds of thoughtful experiments. Kudos man, it really is great. Also the trendline on your graph? Frikkin crazy linear. Like the R-squared on that puppy must be incredibly high.

 

[Syke]

And what about something else than Kveik? The impression that for many homebrewers there exists nothing but Kveik becomes stronger and stronger...

Lots of people have dried ale yeasts. Kveik is the only example I could find with an actual cell count test. I was personally successful drying WLP090. Kveik is a Beer 1 yeast, so it's likely many of the US/UK/Bel/Ger yeasts can be dried.

 

[cmac62]

Here's an actual test. 50% viability at 6 months old dry.

http://suigenerisbrewing.com/index.php/2019/08/28/drying-kveik-the-grand-finale/

To think it could even be better than his #s if you make a 1040 low hopped starter beer and save all the yeast from that you could have Kveik for years. I'm going to have to break out the dehydrator. I have a 1060 beer on kveik in the fermentor and will be kegging it this weekend.

 

[AntDoctor]

What about NOT freezing it? Even though it's dry, I'm worried that condensation etc might form ice crystals... Also potentially using a silica packet to keep things dry might be useful.