Nottingham

[Teufelhunden]

the package instructions say to make a starter, do any of you guys ever pitch your nottingham dry?

 

[COLObrewer]

All the time, I do rehydrate it, however I have also pitched without and it worked fine.

 

[vinyl_key]

I used Nottingham on my second batch (bottled 2 weeks ago). Just opened the pack and dumped it in the carboy. Had a huge krausen a day and a half later.

 

[andrew300]

I have done it both ways. The yeast has about a 8 hour lag time when I rehydrate it and about a 16 hour lagtime without at around 64 degrees. Do not use a starter, it will actually hurt the yeast. If you do use the rehydration, make sure you are careful about sanitizing.

 

[Teufelhunden]

Cool, thanks guys....I originally posted it said to make a starter, I meant rehydrate.

 

[Ragutis]

I use it often and have never rehydrated it.

 

[ReverseApacheMaster]

I would rehydrate.

 

[brewagentjay]

I have 5 batches with it and all dry......

 

[Bacchus]

Having started out in homebrewing with Coopers beer kits, I always pitched my yeast dry. Their yeast packets come with no rehydrating instructions and so I didn't know to do it! But in hindsight, every batch turned out just fine.

In short; Dry pitching won't hurt anything and in all honesty is probably pitched dry more often than not by homebrewers.

 

[GrumpyJed]

I always rehydrate dry yeast......




...... I do this by dumping it in a 5 gallon batch and putting it to work.

 

[Nurmey]

In short; Dry pitching won't hurt anything and in all honesty is probably pitched dry more often than not by homebrewers.

I disagree with this. I always hydrate because it give you many more healthy cells and I think most folks hydrate too. You still get yeast when dry pitching, just not as many.

How hard is it to pour a packet of yeast in a cup of warm water and let it sit for 15 minutes? The answer is....not at all hard.

edit: while we are talking about Notty, I've used it for probably 50 batches or so and I've always hydrated it.

 

[Bacchus]

I disagree with this. I always hydrate because it give you many more healthy cells and I think most folks hydrate too. You still get yeast when dry pitching, just not as many.

How hard is it to pour a packet of yeast in a cup of warm water and let it sit for 15 minutes? The answer is....not at all hard.

edit: while we are talking about Notty, I've used it for probably 50 batches or so and I've always hydrated it.

Although I agree with you that rehydrating is a very easy thing to do, (and I usually do it myself) I disagree that rehydrating gives you any more viable yeast cells. Fifteen minutes doesn't allow for very much reproduction. Yeast starters do but I don't think rehydrating does. I could be wrong! If so, I apologize ahead of time. I think the idea behind rehydrating is to not shock the yeast. But as I said before, I've pitched many yeast packets dry and ended up with great results.

 

[Nurmey]

There is a bunch of scientific stuff about why hydrating is better but the down and dirty is that hydrating in water allows for full cell wall expansion without the yeast having to fight with the sugars while waking up.

 

[hopdawg]

I've always followed the instructions and have brewed with a single 11g pack with beers p to 1.065 OG with great success.
http://www.hopdawgs.ca/index.php/resources/nottingham-dry-yeast/

 

[andrew300]

as i said before, rehydrating will produce a shorter lag time. atleast for me it does

 

[PanzerBanana]

when I use dry yeasts, i'll just take out a small portion of wort and put it in a sanitized container. Give it a good shake when it cools and add the yeast just to wake it up. That way it's already working by the time the rest of the wort is cool enough to pitch.

 

[amh0001]

when I use dry yeasts, i'll just take out a small portion of wort and put it in a sanitized container. Give it a good shake when it cools and add the yeast just to wake it up. That way it's already working by the time the rest of the wort is cool enough to pitch.

This seems kind of counter productive of re hydrating yeast. The whole point to rehydrate it in water is because it allows for yeast to have healthier cell walls by not having to be saturated in the sugar from the wort.

Jamil and Palmer talk about this on Brewstrong.

But to answer the question, I pitch either way depending on my time constraints. Both work fine, but I def notice less lag time when re hydrated. It also helps getting the yeast into the wort instead of floating and clumping on the top.

Cheers

 

[wetherel]

If you don't rehydrate your cell count will drop in half 5X10^9 -> 2.5*10^9. For high gravity worts, like meads, it is very important to rehydrate, for lower gravity worts it isn't as important.

 

[smizak]

as i said before, rehydrating will produce a shorter lag time. atleast for me it does

+1,000,000

From wine yeast to beer yeasts, rehydrating has shrank my lagtimes considerably.

 

[mikeysab]

I love dry yeast, and since Notty walloped my Oatmeal Stout in 3 days, I ordered more. At a buck and a quarter a pack, who wouldn't love it? I get nervous with liquid yeasts. I'm anal about sanitizing, but whenever I make a starter, I feel there's so many more steps that something could go wrong. Maybe because I'm a pretty new brewer, and don't have the confidence yet, but I like the dry yeasts ease of use. I started with coopers kits, and never rehydrated my coopers kits yeasts. I only did 3, but coopers doesn't tell you to rehydrate, so I would have never done it, following their directions. I'll still use liquids for authenticity, but for the most part I'll use dry......always rehydrating.

 

[kwaidonjin]

So should I start using the Nottingham instead of the Safale-us-05 I use? The nottingham is about $2.50 cheaper a pack...

 

[smizak]

So should I start using the Nottingham instead of the Safale-us-05 I use? The nottingham is about $2.50 cheaper a pack...

I've heard people suggest that they are comparable. IMO, they absolutely are not. US-05 has a distinct crispness that allows hops to pop through in flavor and aroma. Especially citrusy American hops. Nottingham will certainly attenuate, but it has a slight English ester that accentuates the sweeter aspect of the maltiness, even if the two yeasts attenuate to the same gravity. When I use the two, I'll absolutely use US-05 for American ales, it lets a lot of the character malts and hops to come through. Nottingham always leaves a distinct "maltiness" that I like in English styles.

 

[ezerhoden]

I would say if you are making a low gravity beer (1.040 or so) you can get away with just pitching the yeast dry on to the beer. You will kill some cells that way but there will be plenty that survive to ferment the beer just fine. It making a bigger beer, I would rehydrate in water, about 115 grams, to keep the cell count up.