Noob yeast question!!

[BeerMe80]

I am brewing my second batch on Saturday and was wondering about the yeast. It's NB Nut Brown Ale and the yeast is a Nottingham ale yeast so can I just pitch this dry or do I need to do a starter with it and if so what would I need to do?


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[CUrchin]

With dry yeast and average abv,you should rehydrate the yeast. If you pitch it straight about 1/2 of it dies. A starter won't hurt but is most likely not necessary.

 

[BeerMe80]

What's the best way to rehydrate it?


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[DaleCooper]

I've made this same kit, rehydrating the dry yeast is fine. You actually don't want to make a starter with dry yeast, as the manufacturer has included some carbohydrate reserves in the packet which would be expended in the starter, resulting in an overall loss of viability, and 11g of rehydrated yeast should have enough little buggers in there to handle your brew.

To rehydrate, you want to sprinkle it on top of about 4 ounces of sterilized water (tap or spring, don't use RO or distilled) that is at about 85-95 degrees F and let it sit (don't stir) in a lightly covered container (I use foil) for about 15 minutes. After 15 minutes, give it a stir to suspend the yeast, let it sit for another five (it should look creamy at this point) and pitch it into your cooled wort.

Danstar even says you don't need to aerate your wort with this yeast, although Im sure it wouldn't hurt anything.

Happy brewing!

 

[boydster]

Take a look at the Dry Yeast FAQ sticky in the Fermentation & Yeast section. +1 to rehydrate, and also with Notty you want to make sure you can control the fermentation temp to the lower end - start it at around 60, let it creep up to ~64 during high krausen, then when it's slowing down, bring it up another couple degrees to help it finish. Notty throws some funny flavors when it gets warm, so you want to do whatever you can to keep it on the cooler end.

 

[BeerMe80]

Thanks!! Will let everyone know how it turns out!


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[DaleCooper]

Take a look at the Dry Yeast FAQ sticky in the Fermentation & Yeast section. +1 to rehydrate, and also with Notty you want to make sure you can control the fermentation temp to the lower end - start it at around 60, let it creep up to ~64 during high krausen, then when it's slowing down, bring it up another couple degrees to help it finish. Notty throws some funny flavors when it gets warm, so you want to do whatever you can to keep it on the cooler end.

Also, this^. I've brewed this kit recently during the cold spell. It was around 64 during peak fermentation and down to 59-61 after that. I let it sit in primary for 3 weeks, then bottled. Came out great.

 

[BeerMe80]

So what is the best temp to have the wort at when I pitch this kind of yeast?


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[boydster]

60 is what I would aim for. 58 even, if you can.

 

[BeerMe80]

Thanks for all the help!! Can't wait to make some more brew still waiting to try my first batch!!


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[grasshopper1917]

Personally I don't re-hydrate yeast. I tried it once a while back and it was the only time I had failed fermentation (granted there was not as much good info on re-hydrating yeast out there as there is today and it most likely went wrong due to my human error).

With a regular gravity from everything I have read suggests there is no need to rehydrate yeast. On a higher gravity beer if you are very careful and rehydrate properly you should get a higher volume of yeast surviving and also less lag.

Be careful when you hear people say 'when you pitch it right in 50% dies pretty well wasting half the pack'. The only side by study I have seen shows that in fact you can lose 50% of yeast by tossing it straight -- but the rehydrate yeast also lost 25%.

I would just say do whatever your comfortable with there is not right and wrong answer. Just if you rehydrate be very careful to follow rehydrating instruction to the letter paying careful attention to the temps.

Cheers

 

[boydster]

Personally I don't re-hydrate yeast. I tried it once a while back and it was the only time I had failed fermentation (granted there was not as much good info on re-hydrating yeast out there as there is today and it most likely went wrong due to my human error).

With a regular gravity from everything I have read suggests there is no need to rehydrate yeast. On a higher gravity beer if you are very careful and rehydrate properly you should get a higher volume of yeast surviving and also less lag.

Be careful when you hear people say 'when you pitch it right in 50% dies pretty well wasting half the pack'. The only side by study I have seen shows that in fact you can lose 50% of yeast by tossing it straight -- but the rehydrate yeast also lost 25%.

I would just say do whatever your comfortable with there is not right and wrong answer. Just if you rehydrate be very careful to follow rehydrating instruction to the letter paying careful attention to the temps.

Cheers

Sean Terrill did a side-by-side test with US-05. He used yeast that, based on the age of the package, should have been 75-80% viable. The yeast hydrated in warm water was 75% - in other words, between 94% and 100% of the cells that were still alive survived rehydration. The yeast hydrated in cool wort was 43% viable after rehydration, or between 54% and 57% of the cells that were still alive.

http://seanterrill.com/2011/04/01/dry-yeast-viability/

 

[BeerMe80]

Just wanted to say thanks to y'all for the advice! Rehydrated the notty & everything went fine so the nut brown ale is fermenting away!!


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