New Yeast Company to Launch in Late October

[Biobrewer]

This is awesome. I definitely plan on browsing your wild yeast collection once you're selling.

One request: Please set up an amazon market. It's mostly out of convenience so that I don't have to retype my CC info every time. I don't know how much they skim off the top, so I understand if you don't.

Not sure if I will have an amazon market or not. At the beginning, I'm going to try to keep it as simple as possible. We'll see where it can go from there though!

 

[will_rouse]

I initially had an idea to sell smaller quantities, and that was a very early update. Should still be in my submitted tab. But after my conversation with Jim Withee of GigaYeast, I was convinced of 2 things:

1) Higher cell count makes it more accessible and usable by more brewers.

2) A contract manufacturer with state-of-the-art equipment will produce more cells for me than I will ever be able to create at home.

So, that is why I evolved towards a larger cell count and finding a contract manufacturer. With White Labs, all the Brett, Sacch and bacteria strains will be at the same concentration that their own strains are packaged at.

Cheers!

Will the packages be 200 billion cells? And I look forward to trying some new strains of yeast. And if it gets me out of building starters I'm sold already!

 

[Biobrewer]

Will the packages be 200 billion cells? And I look forward to trying some new strains of yeast. And if it gets me out of building starters I'm sold already!

Hi!

So, provided we finalize our contact with White Labs (which we fully expect in the near future), all of the Saccharomyces, Brettanomyces and bacteria strains will be provided in the same concentrations as their own products. I believe Saccharomyces is ~100 billion cells/vial and the Brettanomyces and bacteria are typically 2-3 billion cells/vial. Hope that helps!

 

[gwren]

Tried to purchase some yeast, but I show no indication your site is secure. No lock icon and no https:. Sorry, but too many problems out there in the www without some level of security. Please tell me I'm wrong!

 

[marvaden]

Gwren,

I believe this is mostly due to the fact that the store is not up and running yet. Once all the legal stuff is square, the purchasing system will go through https, but you don't need that level of security while just at the pre-checkout stage. Look at amazon for example of this being already standard practice for online shopping. Let's see what security is put in place once the site allows purchases to be made.

In this regard, Biobrewer, are you planning to do a home grown checkout or are you going to use a third party option, like Paypal's API? I would suggest the latter for at least legal CYA reasons.

 

[Biobrewer]

Tried to purchase some yeast, but I show no indication your site is secure. No lock icon and no https:. Sorry, but too many problems out there in the www without some level of security. Please tell me I'm wrong!

Thanks for the inquiry.

First off, we are in the process of finalizing our contract with White Labs (just had another contact with Neva today, and we are on the home stretch), banking our strains and getting product. Probably will be around mid-October time frame.

So far as the security on the site, you have absolutely nothing to be concerned about. I am currently in the process of legally forming the business. Once I get my articles of organization and my seller's permit, only then I can open up my bank accounts, but not before then. Once I open my bank accounts, I can connect my site to Stripe (who requires an open and active bank account to connect), who is the payment processor for Squarespace. I hesitated to connect it using my personal account just to get the Stripe up and going, because that would violate the way LLCs are supposed to be set up financially. Plus, I'm not selling product yet, so there is no real rush to connect it.

Stripe is incredibly secure, PCI compliant and all checkout is served over SSL:

http://help.squarespace.com/customer/portal/articles/938628-stripe-faq

So, yes, all of the necessary security precautions will be taken prior to accepting payments. Join the mailing list, and you'll know when we go live!

Cheers!

 

[Biobrewer]

In this regard, Biobrewer, are you planning to do a home grown checkout or are you going to use a third party option, like Paypal's API? I would suggest the latter for at least legal CYA reasons.

I will be accepting payments through Stripe, who is the company Squarespace goes through for their e-commerce sites. I have heard good things about it.

Here's a little info on the level of security Stripe provides:

http://help.squarespace.com/customer/portal/articles/938628-stripe-faq

Cheers!

 

[marvaden]

Biobrewer,

On your website it says that your wild yeast is still under evaluation. Do you have any informal notes that you can share about the different blends you have?

 

[Biobrewer]

Biobrewer,

On your website it says that your wild yeast is still under evaluation. Do you have any informal notes that you can share about the different blends you have?

My plan is for one to be more barnyard and another to be more fruity. I tried some bottles last night from all of the single strains, but they weren't completely carbonated. I was able to get a good idea though. Will definitely be more clear in the coming weeks.

I am also working on some single strains of Brett as well that will likely be products by the end of the year or a little after. Sadly, it just takes so darn long to evaluate these yeast, way longer than Saccharomyces sp.

Cheers

 

[Ben58]

Hopefully you will have your strains available to the savages to the north!:cross:

 

[Biobrewer]

Hopefully you will have your strains available to the savages to the north!:cross:

Unfortunately, we will be unable to ship to Canada. I think your best bet is going to be to get a group of people together from Canada, connect with someone you trust in the US, and organize a buy through them in which they can then ship the yeast to you. Unfortunately that's all I can recommend right now before we put together a mechanism to accept Canadian orders. Still, an expedited shipping to Canada, which you would likely want to avoid massive transit time, is going to be really expensive.

 

[EarlyAmateurZymurgist]

You beat me to the punch. I have been thinking about of resurrecting a few commercially unavailable cultures that I checked into a large culture collection a decade ago. I am rooting for you. The yeast market has become quite stale. Every new offering is little more than a "me too" clone of an existing commercially-available culture.

 

[marvaden]

Biobrewer,

For the evaluation that is happening for your wild yeasts, are they mostly testing it as a primary strain, secondary strain, or both?

Ben58,

I would gladly be willing to be a middle man for you. I would just ask you to cover the extra shipping charges. PM me for contact info if you are interested and we'll come up with the easiest arrangement.

 

[Biobrewer]

Biobrewer,

For the evaluation that is happening for your wild yeasts, are they mostly testing it as a primary strain, secondary strain, or both?

Ben58,

I would gladly be willing to be a middle man for you. I would just ask you to cover the extra shipping charges. PM me for contact info if you are interested and we'll come up with the easiest arrangement.

Marvaden,

I am currently doing evaluation of the Brett strains as primary fermenters. However, the beer was made using ~40% white wheat and 60% 2-row and I did conduct a protein rest and mashed on the slightly higher end. By doing this, I was attempting to leave enough residual material for the Brett to use during secondary fermentation in the bottle to produce some characteristic funky flavors that typically shine through in many strains of Brett when used as a secondary fermenter. They may be slightly overshadowed by the fruitiness of the beer as a result of using Brett in primary, but I think I will be able to get a good feel for the flavor and aroma that will be produced by each strain, flavors and aromas that are likely more restrained in primary and less so in secondary.

I make and all Brett beer with Brett B and L, and I certainly notice that the bottled beers with yeast remaining in the bottle get more funky with time, and that these flavor compounds are able to shine through the fruity esters of the beer that are rather intense when the beer is younger.

Cheers!

 

[surferdrew]

Any updates on your official launch date?

Looking forward to being an "early adopter!"

Cheers.

 

[BeerGrylls]

Bump.. Anything awesome happening yet?

 

[plumber_bob]

I just checked the site out. Everything for the homebrewer is sold out.

Must be a good thing.?.?.?

pb

 

[DrWill]

I just checked the site out. Everything for the homebrewer is sold out.

Must be a good thing.?.?.?

pb

I think biobrewer doesn't have all the loose ends tied up yet. Here's hoping that everything gets sorted!

Just for the record, biobrewer seems like a class act, and for me that's a good reason to at least consider him as a supplier. He has never bad mouthed his competitors (just the opposite really) and that speaks well of both him as a person and his confidence in his own product.

 

[plumber_bob]

I think biobrewer doesn't have all the loose ends tied up yet. Here's hoping that everything gets sorted!

Just for the record, biobrewer seems like a class act, and for me that's a good reason to at least consider him as a supplier. He has never bad mouthed his competitors (just the opposite really) and that speaks well of both him as a person and his confidence in his own product.

I agree with everything you said.
I think he is going to be a standup business man, and will develop an excellent reputation, based on what I've seen so far.

I book marked his sight and will keep an eye out for when more yeast comes up for sale.

Might check to see if I can back order some too.

pb

 

[BeerGrylls]

He's very vocal about liking reddit's homebrew section better than hbt, which is of course his right, but that means you're more likely to find updates there. So according to his post from two weeks ago, he's being held up by the state: http://www.reddit.com/r/Homebrewing/comments/1q2adx/question_about_culturing_yeast/cd8h56h

 

[marvaden]

Since it sounds like biobrewer won't be posting anything new on here, I figured that I would take the liberty to post this message that he sent out earlier today:

Dear Yeast Bay Subscriber,
Happy holidays from all of us at The Yeast Bay! It’s been too long since our last update, and we wanted to send you all a progress report on our launch activities. Over the last two months, we've been busy and have a lot to update you on regarding the launch of product on our website.

As you likely know if you have been following our progress, White Labs will be banking and contract manufacturing/packaging all of our product strains. In mid-November, wanting to solidify our relationship with White Labs prior to our launch, we took a trip to San Diego to meet everyone and get a close up tour of where our yeast will come to life. It was really great to meet Neva Parker, the lab crew and the front office folks we've been in close contact with for so many months prior. The tour of the facility was very educational and full of lab-related nerd banter, and it was pretty awesome seeing where our yeast will be manufactured. We’re sure this relationship will continue to grow as we get up and running and look forward to developing it as we move forward.

While we were down in San Diego, we also decided to pop into Modern Times Brewery and meet with Alex Tweet, one of the brewers. We sent a number of our strains, primarily Brettanomyces, to the brewery in July when Mike Tonsmeire (aka The Mad Fermentationist) was down there. The strains have since been used in a number of beers in their barrel-aged program that we got to sample while we were there, and seem to be progressing nicely. Not only did Alex give us a tour of the brewery, he went one step further and gave us an awesome beer tour of San Diego, taking the entire day to show us a bunch of his favorite beer spots. Thanks to Alex, we got to see a lot of San Diego beer culture, which we hope to play a more active role in as we launch. If you’re in the San Diego Area, check these guys out. The beer is great, and the brewery is an eclectic and welcoming atmosphere in which to drink the day away with some good friends.

Regarding the launch of homebrewing vials, White Labs just finished banking and evaluating all of our Saccharomyces strains, and are wrapping up their banking and analysis of all our Brettanomyces strains. We’re anticipating that every strain will be banked by the end of the year, and that Saccharomyces and Brettanomyces strains and blends will be available in mid-late January. For commercial sales, we should be prepared to start taking orders by mid-late January as well, and all of the commercial pitch prices are now on the commercial section of the website. You can click on the links below to view the descriptions of the Saccharomyces strains. The descriptions of the Brettanomyces strains should be up on the website shortly.

We continue to get flattering comments regarding our logo, and have been receiving a lot of inquiries regarding the sale of merchandise such as koozies, t-shirts and sweatshirts. I can tell you that while we’re planning to offer a number of items with our logo in the future, our primary focus in the present is on getting yeast up on the website and continuing to isolate and evaluate new strains. Once we settle in and begin selling our yeast strains and when our isolation efforts begin to slow down, we’ll start exploring merchandising opportunities.

We can’t wait to start serving the homebrewing and craft brewing communities, and we’ll send out all of the information about the exact product launch date in the coming weeks. We will also be passing along information regarding the launch of our Facebook page which is currently under construction. This will be a great way for all you subscribers to keep in touch with The Yeast Bay in real time!

Thanks again for subscribing, and feel free to pass this update along to any yeast enthusiasts that you know who currently are not on our mailing list. Cheers!

Nick Impellitteri

I'll post again if I notice that they have opened shop.

Cheers!

 

[tagz]

Dear Yeast Bay Subscriber,

The time is upon us to start selling the yeast we’ve been isolating over the last year! Our yeast banking process is complete, and we have the green light to start ordering yeast from White Labs. While many of you have likely seen descriptions of our “clean” strains, we’ve recently finished in-house evaluation of our Brettanomyces blends as well. Click on one of the products shown below to see some of our funky offerings, or go directly to the website to check them all out.

Regarding the launch of homebrewing vials, we’ve just placed our first order for homebrew scale yeast and will have ~500 vials up for sale in the near future. We anticipate that they will be available in the coming 1-2 weeks, and when we know the exact date, you’ll be the first to know.

As for commercial sales, we’ll begin taking orders for yeast (1bbl and up) on February 3rd, 2014. Since we're just starting up, taking and fulfilling commercial orders might be a little slower than we’d like, but we’re going to try our best to bust these orders out as quick as possible. As always, we encourage our commercial customers to do some fermentations on a smaller scale before scaling up their batch size to ensure that the yeast they have chosen is provides the desired profile. With respect to blend components, we know breweries might want blend proportions slightly different than that of the blends we have available, and we’re working on a system to make individual isolates from blends available on a five-gallon pitch scale. This service will be available to breweries only, so that they can play around with the individual isolates and create their own custom proportions to perfectly suit their beer.

We’ve also officially launched our Facebook page. Come by the page, like us and invite others to join in the yeast enthusiasm! It’s going to be a great way to keep up with us and see what we’re up to, hear about new products and enter occasional giveaways.

Thanks again for subscribing, and for all of the support and patience that you’ve shown as we got ourselves up and going. As always, feel free to pass this update along to any yeast enthusiasts that you know who currently are not on our mailing list. Cheers!

I'm pretty excited about this new venture. Just have to decide which strain to try first!

 

[marvaden]

Just saw on Facebook that they will start selling the homebrew vials on Friday. I'm stoked to try some new yeast strains and blends!

 

[masonsjax]

It's our pleasure to announce we'll be releasing our very first homebrew vials for sale on our website Friday, February 21st. We're pumped to finally be getting our strains in the hands of homebrewers, and will have stock of all of our products. Click on one of the products below or go to our website to check out our full product line. We've also begun selling commercial pitches to a number of breweries. So if you're a commercial brewery looking for some exciting new strains of yeast, check out the commercial orders page of our website for order details.

Don't forget to like us on Facebook to receive more updates about Yeast Bay happenings. As always, please pass this message along to any yeast enthusiasts that are not currently on our mailing list.

Cheers!

Nick Impellitteri
The Yeast Bay

 

[Fermented_minds]

Now available!

clean strains - http://www.theyeastbay.com/brewers-yeast-products/

wild strains - http://www.theyeastbay.com/wild-yeast-and-bacteria-products/

 

[sweetcell]

i can't wait to hear feedback about these strains. i might preemptively start threads, one for each strain, so folks have a spot to post their feedback.

 

[ahpsp]

I wanted to buy some, but shipping is the same price as a vial. I didn't have time to check if the shipping is flat rate. Does anyone know?

At this point, ~$16 for one vial of yeast seems really steep, even though I'm very interested in the strains they have available.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[masonsjax]

Unbelievably, the three strains I am most interested in are the exact three that are sold out. I guess everyone had the same idea.

 

[blizzard]

Someone else posted on a similar thread, that this initial offering is smaller, but will help them identify future production needs. I think you'll be seeing them available again soon.

 

[Fermented_minds]

Someone else posted on a similar thread, that this initial offering is smaller, but will help them identify future production needs. I think you'll be seeing them available again soon.

I have a strong feeling you're right about that