Ok to hydrate yeast the night before?

[andy6026]

I'm going to attempt my second batch tomorrow but my assistants have other plans, so I'll be doing it alone.

I don't fancy prepping (hydrating) the yeast in the kitchen while the burners unattended in the back yard, so can I hydrate it tonight, stick it in the fridge overnight and then just bring it up to wort temp in order to pitch it? If not, what are my options?

 

[foreman1063]

Rehydrate while your wort is cooling, only takes 20 minutes or so.

 

[andy6026]

(un)fortunately I've got a 50', 1/2" wort chiller that brings it down to temp in about 10 minutes. I wouldn't leave that running while i'm in the kitchen prepping yeast, at least not at my experience level.

Is that a no-no on the night before?

 

[foreman1063]

I'm no expert but on all the yeast instructions I've read say don't wait more than 20-30 minutes to pitch once the yeast is hydrated.
It won't hurt the wort to sit a few minutes while you hydrate the yeast. Just be sure to keep it covered.

 

[CTR08]

10 mins is quick! You could kill the flame and let it just stay hot for a few mins while you start the rehydrating. Let that go a few mins and then start cooling. Also what temp to you cool to? You probably want o shoot for around 70 degrees.

 

[bleme]

I wouldn't do it the night before either. If I couldn't multitask at all, I'd rather cool then wait another 20 minutes and pitch.

 

[andy6026]

Tomorrow if I do it, it'll be my second batch. The first I pitched at 75, although I'll probably aim for 70 on tomorrow's batch. I think partly the reason for it coming down so fast is that the water pressure in my house/hose is incredibly strong. Showers are painful at full blast, and I didn't turn the chiller on full blast for fear of blowing apart the elbows I put in the chiller (it's a home-made jobby, and while I may not qualify as the worst handy-man in the world, my chiller is far from the prettiest ever made).

Hmmm, according to Papazian's instructions it takes at least 30-40 mins to prep the yeast, but I'm not sure if his instructions are out of date? What's the fastest way to effectively hydrate yeast?

 

[fizgig]

I've read it drains all the yeast nutrients they add to the pack, so it's not optimal to do the night before. You just want ~95-105 degree water for 20 minutes, 100ml of water for 11g packet.

 

[edds5p0]

I once underestimated how long my whirlpool would take to settle and I ended up pitching yeast that was 3 hours rehydrated. There were no ill effects. You could do it before you begin your boil.

 

[CTR08]

I would think 20 mins should be okay. There are plenty of posters who claim not to rehydrate at all with not adverse effects...

 

[andy6026]

I would think 20 mins should be okay. There are plenty of posters who claim not to rehydrate at all with not adverse effects...

Pitching it dry has crossed my mind too, but seeing that this is only my second batch I want to get the full experience still. My fermenting temperature will also be on the cool side (around 60F), so hydrating it will likely help get the gurgling going in good time.

So, thanks for advising not to rehydrate tonight. I'll find a way to do it tomorrow, I'm sure.

Cheers!

 

[Puddlethumper]

it takes at least 30-40 mins to prep the yeast, but I'm not sure if his instructions are out of date? What's the fastest way to effectively hydrate yeast?

Its really not that big of a deal. While your boil is going and you're standing around waiting for time to pitch that last ounce of hops go into the kitchen and put a cup of water in a saucepan and set the burner so it will come to a boil. Every once in a while, between beers, wander back into the kitchen to check on the water. Once it is boiling it is sterile. Cover, turn the heat off and forget it for a while.

Go have another beer. Once you have started your wort chiller (and you are waiting for the temp to drop) go check the temperature of that water on the stove. (Use a sanitized thermometer). Once it drops to 90-100F (if using Safale yeast) pour about 4 oz. into a sanitized measuring cup and sprinkle the yeast into it. Swirl it around and go check on your cooling wort.

By the time your wort is ready for the yeast the yeast will be ready for the wort. Pitch the yeast, put the airlock into the fermenter, move the fermenter to wherever its going to live for a couple weeks and go have another beer! Nothing to it.

 

[andy6026]

Its really not that big of a deal. While your boil is going and you're standing around waiting for time to pitch that last ounce of hops go into the kitchen and put a cup of water in a saucepan and set the burner so it will come to a boil. Every once in a while, between beers, wander back into the kitchen to check on the water. Once it is boiling it is sterile. Cover, turn the heat off and forget it for a while.

Go have another beer. Once you have started your wort chiller (and you are waiting for the temp to drop) go check the temperature of that water on the stove. (Use a sanitized thermometer). Once it drops to 90-100F (if using Safale yeast) pour about 4 oz. into a sanitized measuring cup and sprinkle the yeast into it. Swirl it around and go check on your cooling wort.

By the time your wort is ready for the yeast the yeast will be ready for the wort. Pitch the yeast, put the airlock into the fermenter, move the fermenter to wherever its going to live for a couple weeks and go have another beer! Nothing to it.

That's the 'can-do' attitude I needed to move tomorrow's brew day along. The weatherman's promising glory, and I can't think of anything better I want to do than be out there sipping and stirring. Cheers!

 

[Puddlethumper]

Pitching it dry has crossed my mind too,

Cheers!

Oh, and btw, pitching it dry isn't all that bad of an idea. Have done that with Munton & Fissons with excellent results. There's a whole bunch of folks who've had good results with pitching Safale the same way. Don't know ahout Nottingham, Windsor, etc.

 

[Puddlethumper]

That's the 'can-do' attitude I needed to move tomorrow's brew day along. The weatherman's promising glory, and I can't think of anything better I want to do than be out there sipping and stirring. Cheers!

I hope you have a great day! Cheers!

 

[andy6026]

you too, thanks for the advice!

 

[BigFloyd]

It's worth the effort to rehydrate dry yeast. The studies on this topic show that a much higher percentage of cells survive intro to the wort vs. sprinkling it dry. Is it absolutely needed? No. Is it a much better brewing practice? Heck yeah.

If you take the extra time to get your wort down to a better pitch temp (65*F), you'll have the time it takes to finish rehydrating yeast.

Before you even start your boil, put a full cup of filtered (not distilled) water in a Pyrex cup and zap it in the microwave for 7 minutes. That should boil it down to about 1/2 cup. Take that out of the microwave and cover it with a piece of foil that's been sprayed with Star-San. While you're doing the boil, it will be cooling to the desired temp of 100*F +/-5*.

After hooking up the chiller, check the water in the Pyrex with a sanitized thermometer. If it's 95-105*, start your rehydration process. After you've chilled, whirlpooled and let the wort settle 10-15 min, the only thing left is to adjust the temp of the yeast slurry (by adding small portions of wort and letting it sit a few, repeat until it's within 10* of the wort) and pitch away.

 

[helibrewer]

You don't want to do the rehydration the night before. The yeast should only be without food for 20-30 minutes, otherwise they begin to starve and begin the process of going back into dormancy.

 

[fizgig]

here's an article I read:

Dr. Clayton Cone suggests the following:
Let me give you some facts regarding rehydration and you can decide for yourself where you want to Compromise.
Every strain of yeast has its own optimum rehydration temperature. All of them range between 95 F to 105F. Most of them closer to 105F. The dried yeast cell wall is fragile and it is the first few minutes (possibly seconds) of rehydration that the warm temperature is critical while it is reconstituting its cell wall structure. As you drop the initial temperature of the water from 95 to 85 or 75 or 65F the yeast leached out more and more of its insides damaging the each cell.
The yeast viability also drops proportionally. At 95 – 105 F, there is 100% recovery of the viable dry yeast. At 60F, there can be as much as 60% dead cells. The water should be tap water with the normal amount of hardness present. The hardness is essential for good recovery. 250 -500 ppm hardness is ideal. This means that deionized or distilled water should not be used. Ideally, the warm rehydration water should contain about 0.5 – 1.0% yeast extract.
For the initial few minutes (perhaps seconds) of rehydration, the yeast cell wall cannot differentiate what passes through the wall. Toxic materials like sprays, hops, SO2 and sugars in high levels, that the yeast normally can selectively keep from passing through its cell wall rush right in and seriously damage the cells. The moment that the cell wall is properly reconstituted, the yeast can then regulate what goes in and out of the cell. That is why we hesitate to recommend rehydration in wort or must. Very dilute wort seems to be OK.
How do many beer and wine makers have successful fermentations when they ignore all the above? I believe that it is just a numbers game. Each gram of Active Dry Yeast contains about 20 billion live yeast cells. If you slightly damage the cells, they have a remarkable ability to recover in the rich wort. If you kill 60% of the cell you still have 8 billion cells per gram that can go on to do the job at a slower rate.

 

[BigFloyd]

here's an article I read:

Dr. Clayton Cone suggests the following:
Let me give you some facts regarding rehydration and you can decide for yourself where you want to Compromise.
Every strain of yeast has its own optimum rehydration temperature. All of them range between 95 F to 105F. Most of them closer to 105F. The dried yeast cell wall is fragile and it is the first few minutes (possibly seconds) of rehydration that the warm temperature is critical while it is reconstituting its cell wall structure. As you drop the initial temperature of the water from 95 to 85 or 75 or 65F the yeast leached out more and more of its insides damaging the each cell.
The yeast viability also drops proportionally. At 95 – 105 F, there is 100% recovery of the viable dry yeast. At 60F, there can be as much as 60% dead cells. The water should be tap water with the normal amount of hardness present. The hardness is essential for good recovery. 250 -500 ppm hardness is ideal. This means that deionized or distilled water should not be used. Ideally, the warm rehydration water should contain about 0.5 – 1.0% yeast extract.
For the initial few minutes (perhaps seconds) of rehydration, the yeast cell wall cannot differentiate what passes through the wall. Toxic materials like sprays, hops, SO2 and sugars in high levels, that the yeast normally can selectively keep from passing through its cell wall rush right in and seriously damage the cells. The moment that the cell wall is properly reconstituted, the yeast can then regulate what goes in and out of the cell. That is why we hesitate to recommend rehydration in wort or must. Very dilute wort seems to be OK.
How do many beer and wine makers have successful fermentations when they ignore all the above? I believe that it is just a numbers game. Each gram of Active Dry Yeast contains about 20 billion live yeast cells. If you slightly damage the cells, they have a remarkable ability to recover in the rich wort. If you kill 60% of the cell you still have 8 billion cells per gram that can go on to do the job at a slower rate.

+1. That article is a good explanation of the rationale behind this.

I used to think of it as simply pitching the little beasts into a nice bucket of their favorite food, but apparently wort isn't the friendliest of environments for unreconstituted dry yeast cells due to lower pH and the other factors listed by the good doctor.

I want to give the yeast every bit of help that I can provide, so I rehydrate.

 

[unionrdr]

Yup. I prefer to rehydrate,then bring the yeast cream down to within 10 degrees of current wort temp. I finally realized that that's why rehydrated dry yeast batches took off so soon & so strong. gotta keep the yeast healthy right through pitching time. Then keep ferment temps within range & Bob's your uncle.

 

[Da11en47]

I always have trouble getting the yeast to cool down to around 75 by the time my wort is done chilling. Is it ok to place the measuring cup of yeast in another pan of cooler water to quicken the cooling process?

 

[unionrdr]

I've even put it in a small ice bath.

 

[BigFloyd]

I always have trouble getting the yeast to cool down to around 75 by the time my wort is done chilling. Is it ok to place the measuring cup of yeast in another pan of cooler water to quicken the cooling process?

What I've read (and follow) suggest the process of "attemperating" your rehydrated yeast slurry.

That simply means to add a small amount of the wort (which is, of course, cooler) to your yeast slurry, stir and let it sit a few minutes. I find that I usually have to repeat this 2-3 times before the yeast is within 10*F of the wort.

 

[helibrewer]

What I've read (and follow) suggest the process of "attemperating" your rehydrated yeast slurry.

That simply means to add a small amount of the wort (which is, of course, cooler) to your yeast slurry, stir and let it sit a few minutes. I find that I usually have to repeat this 2-3 times before the yeast is within 10*F of the wort.

This is the way to do it for a few reasons. It provides the yeast with a food source now that they are "awake". It also allows them to start create the the appropriate enzymes based on the wort environment. They are able to adjust to pH and the osmotic environment. And lastly they acclimate to the wort temperature in a controlled fashion.

 

[wilsojos]

You could pitch it in a small amount of starter wort in a sanitized growler and cover with sanitzed foil the night before.

 

[BigFloyd]

You could pitch it in a small amount of starter wort in a sanitized growler and cover with sanitzed foil the night before.

That seems like it would be a lot of extra effort with little or no extra benefit. You would then be subjecting the dry yeast to the same stresses (and cell loss) as sprinkling dry.

It's a whole lot easier and straightforward to incorporate proper rehydrating into your brew routine.

 

[andy6026]

Thanks to everyone that chipped into this thread. I had two helpers show up unexpectedly so it turned out to be no problem to rehydrate the yeast shortly before pitching while others supervised the kettle/burner. Nonetheless I'm sure I'll be brewing alone at some point, so this information will come in handy.

I now have a dark ale from a Coopers kit in the fermenter. OG was 1042. The brew went smoothly except that I forgot to submerge the wort chiller into the boiling wort 15 minutes prior to the hour... so I ended up boiling for an extra 10 minutes. Not quite ideal, but I shrugged and opened a beer...

 

[wilsojos]

That seems like it would be a lot of extra effort with little or no extra benefit. You would then be subjecting the dry yeast to the same stresses (and cell loss) as sprinkling dry.

It's a whole lot easier and straightforward to incorporate proper rehydrating into your brew routine.

Have you ever used a yeast starter or know anything about it? I would dare say it is one of the easiest ways to improve your beer substantially.

 

[bleme]

Have you ever used a yeast starter or know anything about it? I would dare say it is one of the easiest ways to improve your beer substantially.

You should never do a yeast starter with dry yeast. For all the reasons previously stated, even 1.040 wort used for liquid starters will kill a significant amount of cells. When properly hydrated, dry yeast has twice the cell count of liquid yeast and can easily handle anything 1.060 or lower. For any brew higher than that, it is cheaper and more effective to just pitch a 2nd packet of dry yeast.