Idea... Well a proposal to brewing supply companies

[eric19312]

There is no guarantee because it's effectively impossible for the yeast makers to do it, and even harder for you to verify it. Even counting cells with a microscope is an estimate with a large margin of error. Ever wonder why the packs of yeast never explicitly state a cell count?

Lance from Omega has talked with my homebrew clubs a couple times. (Great guy, BTW!) He said that he stands by the cell counts for his packages, but that homebrewers are much better served to focus on pitching healthy yeast than obsessing over cell counts. He said that they observe different viability and cell multiplication rates for each different strain of yeast. Quoting their FAQ:

https://omegayeast.com/resources/homebrewing

While Wyeast and White Labs are larger than Omega, and may have some more advanced processes, I'd bet that Omega is just more honest about cell count and viability. So, they can't possibly make any real guarantees here when the yeast leaves their door, much less once it's been handled by a shipping company, a homebrew supply store, and you get it home.

...and my LBHS's mark yeast packs at 50% off when they're over a certain age. They've even given me and other homebrew club members free yeast that was way past it's dates.

No this is not enough. I read the Omega site and Lance sounds like a great guy but I still think the liquid yeast manufacturers choose to hide information that would be helpful to some homebrewers. They justify hiding this information behind saying all the complexity is over our heads and better to keep is simple. It comes across to me as condescending at best and intentionally misleading at worst. They don't want to admit that 5 month old pack that was sold with a claim that it contained 150 billion cells really has something like 15 billion viable cells in it now (Mr Malty).

Compare their homebrewer guidance to their probrewer guidance.
https://omegayeast.com/uploads/price-charts/OYL-Price-Chart.pdf
x million cells per degree plato...order your yeast by number of cells. Why not just tell the pros...trust me this is the right amount of yeast for your batch?

 

[Oginme]

What is the incentive for the yeast companies to change? In discussion with the owner of my LHBS, it seems that the majority of brewers he sees do not make a starter, pay no attention to the dates on the smack packs, and do not engage in brewing to the extent that those few of us here pursue. Those who pack in additional yeast cells have not overwhelmed the market (yet); so no incentive to change mode of product offering is readily apparent.

 

[mashpaddled]

I'm pretty sure the best by dates on liquid yeast relate to the last date the manufacturer believes the yeast can viably ferment the amount and gravity of wort so there's not a logical reason for the manufacturers to offer a discount or rebate on the product before that date.

It's great when LHBS can sell a wide range of strains but most homebrewers consistently only brew with a small number of strains so somebody has to eat the cost of retailers offering yeast that nobody buys. Look across all of the yeast manufacturers and, aside from sour/brett blends, they all sell pretty much the same handful of yeast with different labels. By putting less commonly purchased yeast on rotating release availability it reduces waste in the retail market while continuing to make those strains available for people who really want to buy them.

 

[MaxStout]

Two things here:
1. It's costly for an LHBS (particularly small businesses where margins are tight) to continue stocking a lot of perishable inventory.
2. Like grocery stores throwing out past-ripe produce, the LHBS will not sell all of its yeast stock before the expiration date, and thus what doesn't sell becomes part of the overhead. This has to be passed on to the customer somehow, usually in the form of higher prices.

No easy answer here. With mail-order companies, you don't know how old the yeast is until it arrives. Roll of the dice. For walk-in sales at the local shops, you can look at the date before buying. Even then, if the shop is the only one around, you're kind of stuck with whatever they have on hand.

One thing that worked for me. I have a rapport with the owner of my local shop and one day we were talking about this very topic. He told me that if I plan my brews (I do), call him a week or two in advance and ask for a certain strain. He would add a pack or two to his weekly shipment. I come in and pick up liquid yeast that's very fresh. This may not work everywhere, but it's worth a try. Doesn't hurt to ask.

 

[isomerization]

Can anyone provide a justification to the concept that pitching X number of yeast into Y volume yields a different cell count (Z), than say pitching X/2 into same volume (Y)?

I’m not talking about several orders of magnitude difference in X (as may be seen when propping up bottle dregs), but rather the concern in using a starter vial with 20 billion cells versus the stated 100 billion.

Build of a waste products? Yeast cell division limits? Time? Legitimately interested because it seems counterintuitive to me.

 

[Qhrumphf]

If you start asking WY and WLP (or really anyone else) being asked to reimburse homebrew shops for expired/old yeast when homebrew shops discount expired/old yeast to customers, you're gonna see throttling of supply based on what homebrew shops prove they can sell. While that means fresher yeast it means less strains strains available and less quantity available. So if you're shopping today to brew today or tomorrow, higher chance that instead of old yeast you get no yeast (except for maybe Chico). I don't think you want that.

Buy ahead of time and be prepared to prop yourself. Done.

It'd be nice if labs would ship direct to homebrewers (and maybe some smaller ones do). If pros order from Wyeast or White Labs there's a little more variance in quantity but still not directly order by cell count (order from available pitchable quantities at more or less the same rates marketed to homebrewers). The difference is that when it's propped to order and overnighted from the lab, the viable cell count they tell you is more or less the viable cell count you get.

 

[brewswithshoes]

If you've never been to White Labs operation, I'd suggest a visit. On top of it being a cool place to get yeast variant flights, it gave me an appreciation of what it takes to get a healthy yeast to the pro or homebrewer. I won't be complaining about the 8-9 bucks ever again after seeing what it takes.

If u are concerned with cell counts, buy a second pack. If you don't want to spend the extra money over build a starter and start your own library.

It really is that simple. Yeast is super cheap, even liquid, when you consider what it takes to get it to you in some viable form.

 

[Rodent]

I suspect there's not many posting in this thread who have ever owned and successfully operated long-term a small, profitable business ...

IMO if this idea was implemented at a typical LHBS, all I can see happening is:

1) the cost for the newest/freshest yeast to increase significantly as a means to reduce the LHBS' financial risk and offset any cost/loss for discounting yeast closing in on the expiration date

and then

2) the varieties/formats/producers of stocked yeast strains would be reduced to only those which would dependably be sold within a short period of time, coupled with a further price increase to offset the cost of additional shipping charges the LHBS pays for smaller, more frequent orders to keep yeast package dates within a month of manufacture

closely accompanied by

3) the quantities of stocked yeast packages for a given strain would diminish to further reduce financial risk


given the simplicity of checking yeast package dates when making a purchase, and making a starter when/if needed, I see no sustainable long-term consumer benefit that would offset a short-term savings of $2-$4 on a specific package of 'not packaged within the last month' yeast

simply my two Indian Rupees on the topic ...

 

[passedpawn]

I bought two expired packs once from my LHBS. Half price! I would not have bought, but he didn't have any newer ones of the strain I wanted.

Neither expanded, but I pitched into starter anyway. It was all a big fat fail. I'll never buy yeast older than 1 month again, for ANY price.

 

[S-Met]

It is easy, just overshoot so in 6 months the cell count would not dip below 100 billion cells. Have some integrity with your product instead of letting the marketing overshoot. Companies like Omega and Imperial are trying to exploit this gap.

I assume most companies already do overshoot. The concerns I have regarding yeast viability has to do with everything that happens after it leaves the lab.
I know that they are shipped 1-day in cold-package boxes, but:
How long did it sit in the back of a hot truck?
How long did it sit @ lbhs before getting unpacked?
How temp-stable is the refrigerator @lbhs?
How accurate is the temperature of the storage refrigerator @lbhs?
How often s the storage fridge accessed @lbhs?
How is the yeast transported home, coldpack?
How long did it sit @ home before getting unpacked?
How temp-stable is the refrigerator @home?
How accurate is the temperature of the storage refrigerator @home?

I'm sure other valid questions too, but there are many intrinsic and extrinsic variables that can potentially alter yeast viability. A Lab can only guarantee a specific cell count as it leaves their facility, unless they control shipping.

 

[TallDan]

I bought two expired packs once from my LHBS. Half price! I would not have bought, but he didn't have any newer ones of the strain I wanted.

Neither expanded, but I pitched into starter anyway. It was all a big fat fail. I'll never buy yeast older than 1 month again, for ANY price.

Great example of the variability here. I got two packs of expired yeast for free. Both were expired by about a year. I made a starter and made a belgian pale ale with one of them, no trouble with the starter or the fermentation. The other I think i threw away, but I don't remember for sure.

Keep in mind that you're buying a package of BILLIONS of microscopic living organisms here, people. This isn't malted barley, which by comparison is very shelf stable and easy to store.

 

[day_trippr]

Pretty sure nobody missed that. Indeed it's pretty much the driver for the entire thread...

 

[Bobby_M]

I've been running a homebrew store with a heavy ecommerce lean for 5 years now so I can provide some perspective. First and foremost, liquid yeast is the worst product to deal with and there is absolutely no profit in it. You better make it up on other products.

It was my best intentions to manage yeast inventory and drive sales of aging packs by prorating the price. Anything over 3 months old would be discounted by $1 for every month. Well, in reality it would have required a completely scratch-written POS, inventory system, and ecommerce platform. Trying to do it semi-manually is a no go. You'd have to create unique SKUs for every strain by it's package date to jam it into a generic system.

We used to try to keep two SKUs, fresh and aging but I was spending 80% of my times on 20% of the product suite (the one that doesn't make any money anyway). We'd accumulate a bunch of aging discounted yeast and no one wanted it. We even saved the 5+ month old packs and marked them free and every once in a while, someone would take them to grow back up again but sometimes they'd just sit in the fridge forever.

The other challenge is even if you have a 1 month old pack and a 1 week old pack in the fridge, customers will dig and find that one week old one. I get the motivation.

Where we are now is that any pack that hits 4 months goes in the trash.

If you've never thought about this, here are some truths..

A large commercial fridge that people open and close on a regular basis almost never stops running. That bitch draws 14 amps.

Fedex 2-day air shipping costs me about $240 for 140 packs of yeast. That's $1.71 per pack just in shipping.

Even if I were able to sell every pack without spoilage, the shipping and refrigeration costs make it break even at best.

 

[Braufessor]

Can anyone provide a justification to the concept that pitching X number of yeast into Y volume yields a different cell count (Z), than say pitching X/2 into same volume (Y)?

I’m not talking about several orders of magnitude difference in X (as may be seen when propping up bottle dregs), but rather the concern in using a starter vial with 20 billion cells versus the stated 100 billion.

Build of a waste products? Yeast cell division limits? Time? Legitimately interested because it seems counterintuitive to me.

In my experience, chasing a certain yeast cell count is not really the end goal. The more important goal is pitching ACTIVE yeast. A smaller total count of actively fermenting yeast is actually better than a large count of yeast that has a lag time to get going.......This post on AHA really changed how I looked at things in regard to yeast pitching. It is worth the read - there is a lot of great information in it. Pay attention to the posts by S. cerevisiae

https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?topic=20692.0

This thread too... starting on page 3 or 4 in particular..... https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?topic=24460.45

 

[MaxStout]

The other challenge is even if you have a 1 month old pack and a 1 week old pack in the fridge, customers will dig and find that one week old one. I get the motivation.

I do that with milk in the grocery store. I get that. People will cherry-pick.

 

[BrewsnBass]

I was told WYeast only sells by the multi pack box so there will always be some sitting around where White labs will sell by a single package.

 

[HTH1975]

I’d rather see the likes of WL and WY invest in dried strains so viability is much less of an issue.

 

[Bobby_M]

I was told WYeast only sells by the multi pack box so there will always be some sitting around where White labs will sell by a single package.

You were told wrong. Singles are orderable.

 

[kh54s10]

I have a couple of thoughts.

If you make the Labs rebate to the retailers how do you balance out them supplying X-LHBS that sells a ton of yeast so very little gets to expiration date. The Y-LHBS that sells very little yeast and most of their yeast approaches expiration date.

If the labs over-pack their yeast so that you end up with the stated number of cells at expiration date, that puts the homebrewer in a situation where they have to try to figure out what the cell count is in between packaging and expiration date.... Or you then end up buying liquid yeast to sit on until expiration date so that you know the cell count. But then again do you??? How was the package treated from packaging until you bought it? Was it really cold at some point - killing cells? Was it hot at some point - killing cells? It is still a guessing game.

All of this, if implemented would either raise the price of liquid yeast dramatically, or dramatically decrease the availability of different strains of yeast.

Especially if you take 50% off the purchase price at 50% of the time left.

You also make the marketing of yeast a nightmare of record keeping for both the lab and the LHBS

The whole idea is unworkable.

 

[ESBrewer]

I have a proposal to professional breweries. Do some more bottle conditioning with your primary fermentation strain. I tend to prefer these companies when buying beer...

 

[Braufessor]

Or, if it is that big of a deal to people.... just simply put something a bit clearer on the package or on the yeast display:

"We put 100 (or 200) Billion viable cells in this package. When fresh, this is an adequate pitch rate for 5 gallons of wort below 1.050 gravity. However, time and improper handling will always gradually decrease the viable cell count. As it is unrealistic for an average home brewer to know the viable cell count of an older, or poorly handled package, we recommend making a starter when using liquid yeast unless you are pitching very fresh yeast into a low gravity beer."

 

[HTH1975]

I have a proposal to professional breweries. Do some more bottle conditioning with your primary fermentation strain. I tend to prefer these companies when buying beer...

The yeast used in primary fermentation does not always make the best yeast to use for bottling purposes. If it’s a powdery type of yeast that is easily disturbed, you’re going to get cloudy beer. A bottling yeast (or something like Nottigham) will stay fixed to the bottom of the bottle.

I understand that you want to grow up the yeast from that bottle, but it’s not really cost effective by the time you figure in the cost of making starters to build up enough viable yeast. Surely just buying a fresh pack of yeast is easier.

 

[ESBrewer]

@HTH1975 I agree, but I'm not brewing cause it is cheap and easy but because it is fun, interesting and sometimes challenging.

 

[Brettomomyces]

I've been running a homebrew store with a heavy ecommerce lean for 5 years now so I can provide some perspective. First and foremost, liquid yeast is the worst product to deal with and there is absolutely no profit in it. You better make it up on other products.

It was my best intentions to manage yeast inventory and drive sales of aging packs by prorating the price. Anything over 3 months old would be discounted by $1 for every month. Well, in reality it would have required a completely scratch-written POS, inventory system, and ecommerce platform. Trying to do it semi-manually is a no go. You'd have to create unique SKUs for every strain by it's package date to jam it into a generic system.

We used to try to keep two SKUs, fresh and aging but I was spending 80% of my times on 20% of the product suite (the one that doesn't make any money anyway). We'd accumulate a bunch of aging discounted yeast and no one wanted it. We even saved the 5+ month old packs and marked them free and every once in a while, someone would take them to grow back up again but sometimes they'd just sit in the fridge forever.

The other challenge is even if you have a 1 month old pack and a 1 week old pack in the fridge, customers will dig and find that one week old one. I get the motivation.

Where we are now is that any pack that hits 4 months goes in the trash.

If you've never thought about this, here are some truths..

A large commercial fridge that people open and close on a regular basis almost never stops running. That bitch draws 14 amps.

Fedex 2-day air shipping costs me about $240 for 140 packs of yeast. That's $1.71 per pack just in shipping.

Even if I were able to sell every pack without spoilage, the shipping and refrigeration costs make it break even at best.

Lots of truth in this post...I work in a homebrew store as well and we try our best to manage an inventory of wyeast, wlp, imperial, omega, giga and a local company inland island for our liquid strains. It is incredibly wasteful. We also used to keep two SKUs but don't really use the expired one anymore for the exact same reasons; it's time consuming and not very helpful for cash flow. We keep a box full of anything over 6 months and allow customers to paw through it for free. Usually makes someone's day and they take it home to make a starter, but doesn't give us any added profit.

I'll also add from my perspective in selling all these different brands, many homebrewers are absolutely stuck on their particular brand/strain. As in we have many people who specifically use wlp001 and won't touch any other brand's chico strain, or the fact that wyeast 3711 outsells every other french saison yeast. I understand there are some small differences between strains and companies, but we carry 4 different liquid Irish ale yeasts yet someone still complained we were out of 1 of 4 last week and decided to wait until our next order arrived in a few days. And at the end of the day, wyeast 1056 and wlp001 still outsell everything else 10 to 1. Mostly we end up wasting packs of lager and Belgian strains that are not very popular but we are expected to stock anyway.

 

[NeoBrew]

I skipped a couple of pages here, forgive me if this was already mentioned. If you wanted to pro-rate the price of yeast based on it's age, the price of a "fresh" strain would go way up. This would be necessary to cover the cost of the handling and sorting of the less profitable fresh yeast. I would have to imagine that the price is currently set at some sort of optimal shelf life, like 2-3 months?

I would be happy if I could just have a way to custom order fresh yeast to my LHBS. I know it is difficult for them to stock what everybody wants/needs. It worries my mail ordering as my climate can go from 90+F in the summer to -20F in the winter. I generally start planning for my next beer a couple weeks out. I would love to be able to put in an order and get a new pack a couple weeks later to pick up at my LHBS where I could count on it getting received and put into a cooler.

I'm currently experimenting to set up my own yeast ranch just because of the difficulty of being able to count on yeast that I buy. For me the thought of loosing a whole brew day because my yeast was not up to par is painful. (Plus it's another thing to learn!)

 

[SoCal-Doug]

My Giga-021 starter (3 month old package) took over three days to show just a slight sign of life. I've come to the conclusion that i'll start slanting and storing again. If I have to do starters anyway, why pay for the yeast. Just bank it

 

[TallDan]

I would be happy if I could just have a way to custom order fresh yeast to my LHBS. I know it is difficult for them to stock what everybody wants/needs. It worries my mail ordering as my climate can go from 90+F in the summer to -20F in the winter. I generally start planning for my next beer a couple weeks out. I would love to be able to put in an order and get a new pack a couple weeks later to pick up at my LHBS where I could count on it getting received and put into a cooler.

Have you asked? Once when I asked for a specific strain they didn’t have in stock, the guy at the LHBS told me that anytime I want something specific, let him know and he’d include it in their next order and have it within a week.

 

[Rodent]

Have you asked? Once when I asked for a specific strain they didn’t have in stock, the guy at the LHBS told me that anytime I want something specific, let him know and he’d include it in their next order and have it within a week.

Same willingness at my LHBS to order anything not stocked and have in a week or so.

 

[JimRausch]

My LHBS hates selling liquid yeast. He says he makes no money on it due to the high shipping costs and massive loss due to old yeast. But he MUST carry it, or lose customers.

My thought is that White / Wyeast should ship direct. They wouldn't have to give the dealers a cut, and use that money to get me 2-day free shipping and some sort of packaging that preserves the yeast for that trip. I don't think there is a way to do it economically though.

Great thought! I always figured LHBS aren't making squat from liquid yeast. Where do they make $? Buying 50 lb sacks of grain and breaking them up into 1 lb allocates. And packaging and selling kits. I get most of my yeast from NB, because my LHBS either doesn't have what I want, or it's pretty old. I'd buy directly from Wyeast if they sold direct.

 

[Bobby_M]

I'll also add from my perspective in selling all these different brands, many homebrewers are absolutely stuck on their particular brand/strain. .

I see this too but I simply won't cave on it. I carry Wyeast and Omega and there is usually a lot of crossover there already. There is more variation in the total process from one batch to another that it would erase any slight variation between labs. Strict adherence to a given lab is dogma and carrying four or five labs extremely similar yeast is just another way to lose even more money.