Growing Yeast w/ Dry Yeast...

[cylered16]

I know I could go buy several packs of dry ale yeast to possibly solve my problem but here are some questions:

Can you propagate yeast using dry yeast and perform several cycles of adding starter wort to make a yeast starter?

I'm attempting this with Munton & Fison Ale Yeast (Dry).
How many yeast cells (after hydration) are generally in a dry yeast pack?

I'd like to have a couple hundred billion cells for a Double IPA that I'd like to brew in about 2 weeks.

Can this method be effective?

 

[weirdboy]

You will probably spend more on wort to propagate than you would just buying more packs of yeast. But you can definitely do it with a starter.

 

[danielinva]

An 11.g gram packet of dry yeast tends to have about 200 billion yeast cells. I suppose a 5g pack would be a bit less than half that. What's your target OG for this brew?

 

[cylered16]

My target OG is 1.100

 

[Gremlyn]

Make one big starter with a few packets a couple days prior to pitching, that should give you plenty of viable, healthy ad happy yeasties.

 

[danielinva]

You'd probably be fine with either 2 packs of yeast or about 1L starter. I'd personally do two packs rather than the starter though, almost defeats the purpose of dry yeast if you have to make one.

 

[david_42]

Make a smaller beer and pitch on the cake. It's like a 5 gallon starter.

 

[Dadums]

I am currently searching to see if I could ranch off a cake from a beer I made with dry yeast. I thought that I had read somewhere that you should not harvest off a cake made from dry yeast but I have not found a definative answer. Can anyone tell me yes or no. Thanks Rob

 

[khiddy]

I harvest off of a dry yeast cake (usually Nottingham, but I've also done an S-04 and Munton's), and haven't had a problem yet.

However, I won't be using Munton's again. It's slow, doesn't attenuate fully even to it's own low spec, and flocculates poorly. Did I mention it's slow?

Notty FTW!

 

[danielinva]

There's really nothing different about harvesting a yeast cake of dry yeast vs. liquid yeast. However, most brewers do not use this because:
1. Dry yeast is not very expensive
2. Dry yeast packets do not require a starter whereas harvested yeast does
3. There is always a risk of contamination from yeast harvesting

You can do it, but its a good little bit of work to save a buck or two.

 

[Dadums]

thanks Rob

 

[bad coffee]

If your LHBS is close, just buy the extra packet. My LHBS is an hour away, so I can't just run out.

I do have a stir plate and bars. I also save the cold break when I brew and filter it. I freeze it and have free wort for my next starter. I pull it out of the freezer and boil it for 10 minutes before using it.

When I open my last pack of the old Notty, I'll be making a starter so I can freeze 10 vials of it.

B

 

[riha]

My "LHBS" is also rather far away and additionally is not very well equipped. They happened to have some Safale S04 and S05, but at rather outrageous prices (it's almost cheaper to order stuff from Germany and pay 10-20€ postage for couple of bags) so I'd like to freeze some for later use.

Is there anything special to know about making a starter for dry yeast package (11,5g)? Loads of yeast cells, so should it be a big starter with lots of sugar/nutritients? Or should I just use it and then wash and freeze some of the yeast cake?

 

[Bob]

The latter, in my opinion. If you insist on banking a slant, brew a beer and harvest slurry. As someone else noted, you may think of it as a large starter with drinkable results.

Me, I'd just buy in a whole bunch of dry yeast at once. Those packets keep for ever, and it's far, far less hassle than banking slants.

Bob