starter for dry yeast to reduce lag time?

[Unicorn_Platypus]

I know that generally starters are not recommended for dry yeast, but I do find lag times to be less than ideal for low oxygen brewing when using dry yeast. Ideally, we want active yeast when oxygenating the cooled wort at pitching so that oxygen is consumed before it can do damage to the wort

thoughts on simply making a starter with dry yeast just to reduce lag time? does anyone else do this?

 

[Bassman2003]

I can not see a drawback. Kind of takes the fun out of dry yeast but lag sucks!

 

[Unicorn_Platypus]

I can not see a drawback. Kind of takes the fun out of dry yeast but lag sucks!

LOL!

I'm pretty lazy with my starters nowadays and just use a can of proper starter, so we're only talking an extra $4 and minimal effort. My days of boiling DME for starters are behind me. My time is worth more than $4. This stuff has been a total game changer for me

 

[day_trippr]

I can't recall ever doing a true starter with any dry yeast (95% of which are Fermentis products ala US-05 and S-04 and the other 5% is Lallemand BRY-97) but I do always hydrate the pitch per the available instructions - which typically involves waiting for the initial hydration period before gently stirring then waiting another while before stirring once again then pitching. I typically pitch around 4 PM on brew days and by the early morning there's always at least a thick inch of krausen and bubbling at the end of my keg purge line.

I will allow that I typically pitch two packs of dry yeast to 5-1/2 gallons of wort - as pretty much everything I brew has an OG of at least 1.070, which is too high for a single pack from either manufacturer...

Cheers!

 

[brewbama]

I hydrate with Go-Ferm as soon as the mash is underway. I shake it a few times during the brewday and just before pitching I add Fermax and shake it again. I have been getting start times at ~4 hours doing this.

 

[Unicorn_Platypus]

I hydrate with Go-Ferm as soon as the mash is underway. I shake it a few times during the brewday and just before pitching I add Fermax and shake it again. I have been getting start times at ~4 hours doing this.

Interesting, never heard of either of those products. So you are essentially using two different kinds of nutrients

What temperature are you hydrating at?

I always thought you weren't to let hydrated dry yeast sit more than an hour or so before pitching. Any reason you do it so far in advance?

What are your typical dosing rates for each product?

Cheers!

 

[Yesfan]

Interesting, never heard of either of those products. So you are essentially using two different kinds of nutrients

What temperature are you hydrating at?

I always thought you weren't to let hydrated dry yeast sit more than an hour or so before pitching. Any reason you do it so far in advance?

What are your typical dosing rates for each product?

Cheers!

Why wouldn't you let the hydrated yeast sit for an hour? I'd think that wouldn't be any different than smacking a Wyeast activator pack a few hours before brew day.

 

[Unicorn_Platypus]

Why wouldn't you let the hydrated yeast sit for an hour? I'd think that wouldn't be any different than smacking a Wyeast activator pack a few hours before brew day.

Generally manufacturer instructions advise to pitch within 30 min of rehydration. My understanding is dry yeast loses viability if you wait too long to pitch after rehydration

 

[day_trippr]

If one follows Fermentis' recommendation it takes roughly an hour to prepare a hydrated pitch.
From their US-05 handout:

Re-hydrate the dry yeast into yeast cream in a stirred vessel prior to pitching. Sprinkle the dry yeast in 10 times its own weight of sterile water or wort at 27C ± 3C. Once the expected weight of dry yeast is reconstituted into cream by this method (this takes about 15 to 30 minutes), maintain a gentle stirring for another 30 minutes. Then pitch the resultant cream into the fermentation vessel.

Cheers!

 

[brewbama]

Interesting, never heard of either of those products. So you are essentially using two different kinds of nutrients

What temperature are you hydrating at?

I always thought you weren't to let hydrated dry yeast sit more than an hour or so before pitching. Any reason you do it so far in advance?

What are your typical dosing rates for each product?

Cheers!

Go ferm is a rehydration product. I simply use brewery room temp. I do it as I mash for convenience. I am hydrating yeast and mashing simultaneously. The dose rates are 1.25 g Go-Ferm Protect per 1 g of yeast, Fermax is 1 tsp per gal wort but I use 2 tsp

 

[bobtheUKbrewer2]

I buy SO4 in the bulk pack and pitch at 20 gm per 25 litres after hydration in bottled water with some brewing sugar and vitamin C - always fizzing after 16 hours approx.........

 

[MaxStout]

I rehydrate with Go Ferm, as well. I use a 500ml erlenmeyer flask to boil some water, let it cool a bit and mix in the Go Ferm (don't add to boiling water or you'll get a mess from nucleation). Let it cool to about 80F, sprinkle in yeast. Let it sit 20-30 mins, then give the flask a swirl every few minutes before pitching. I usually see active fermentation within 12-18 hours.

 

[Unicorn_Platypus]

My lag time with liquid yeast (using a starter) is generally < 6 hours.

My experience with hydrated dry yeast (without go-ferm) is generally in line with MaxStout and longer than what I generally see with a healthy liquid yeast starter.

I will do a yeast starter for my next batch and report back.

This is for a big barleywine with Nottingham yeast.

Cheers!

 

[Witherby]

LOL!

I'm pretty lazy with my starters nowadays and just use a can of proper starter, so we're only talking an extra $4 and minimal effort. My days of boiling DME for starters are behind me. My time is worth more than $4. This stuff has been a total game changer for me

After a DME starter boilover on the kitchen stove this morning, I think I may join you.

 

[Cheshire Cat]

I have only ever used dry yeast and have never rehydrated, just sprinkle the yeast on the wort. I start brewing at 8:00 and finish about 13:00. By next morning the yeast is doing its stuff.

 

[HM-2]

Honestly I can't say as noticing a particularly noteworthy difference in lag time between non-rehydrated dry and liquid yeasts. In both cases 95% of the time I've got signs of fermentation within 5-6 hours.

 

[Miraculix]

I do nowadays make a starter of nearly all of my dry yeast to get rid of the "drying shock". Dry yeast underperforms due to being dried in my experience. By "turning it into liquid yeast" by letting it multiply for a few generations, I experienced significant improvements in flocculation, esther expression (or the lack of it, if it is supposed to be a clean yeast) and reduced unwanted byproducts. I make a 1.04 og, 2 litre starter with 3 g of dry yeast. My starter contains 30% oats to further enhance yeast growth. When boiling the wort, I decant the liquid of the starter and throw in a cup of chilled wort. This wakes the starter up, I have lots of bubbling by the time to pitch it and the lag in the fermenter is usually really short. 2-3h max.

Works well for me. It seems like the impact of this technique on the yeast differs from strain to strain though.

 

[Bassman2003]

Sounds plausible. If the dried yeast perks up to equal liquid with the use of a starter then the dry delivery method is still a good way to go. I would like to see or even taste some side by sides of liquid vs dry vs dry+starter.

 

[HM-2]

I've have brewed the same beers with liquid and dry yeasts that are analogous (though probably not exactly the same) and never really noticed perceptible differences. Fermentation performance and expression have ended up being pretty much identical. I've felt that dry yeasts flocculate better, but that might be selection bias as I have no reason to actually think it the case from a scientific perspective.

Truth be told the last year or so I have completely given up on liquid yeast with the exceptions of "Brett and bugs" or the occasional use case where I can't get a dry yeast for a specific purpose.

Half the price, ten times the shelf life, no perceptible difference in performance or outcomes, no need for starters, no need for aeration, less mess...

 

[Miraculix]

I've have brewed the same beers with liquid and dry yeasts that are analogous (though probably not exactly the same) and never really noticed perceptible differences. Fermentation performance and expression have ended up being pretty much identical. I've felt that dry yeasts flocculate better, but that might be selection bias as I have no reason to actually think it the case from a scientific perspective.

Truth be told the last year or so I have completely given up on liquid yeast with the exceptions of "Brett and bugs" or the occasional use case where I can't get a dry yeast for a specific purpose.

Half the price, ten times the shelf life, no perceptible difference in performance or outcomes, no need for starters, no need for aeration, less mess...

With clean yeasts, I agree. With English or other expressive yeasts I haven't found anything alike imperial pub or imperial rustique for example. I really tried.....

The lallemand farmhouse was a recent surprise. Not as expressive as roustique, but still clearly a saison.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

I know that generally starters are not recommended for dry yeast, but I do find lag times to be less than ideal for low oxygen brewing when using dry yeast. Ideally, we want active yeast when oxygenating the cooled wort at pitching so that oxygen is consumed before it can do damage to the wort

thoughts on simply making a starter with dry yeast just to reduce lag time? does anyone else do this?

Depends on what is the biggest concern. If you're making hoppy beer then I would be more worried about the aeration/oxygen needed for "liquid" yeast (which is effectively what a starter turns dry yeast into) than about a bit of lag. If you have decent sanitation then I wouldn't fret too much about yeast lag - no-chill brewers effectively give themselves an extra 8-12 hours before fermentation starts and still make good beer.

Oxygen is less of a worry for something like a barleywine - in fact even dry yeast may benefit from a bit extra, so in that case go for it. Or just use a more interesting liquid yeast....

 

[Cowgirl]

Im new to brewing but recently I used LalBrew Verdant IPA yeast and there was no lag time and longer fermentation with a larger krausen. I swirled the beer and just sprinkled it on the wort. It worked great.

 

[HM-2]

With clean yeasts, I agree. With English or other expressive yeasts I haven't found anything alike imperial pub or imperial rustique for example. I really tried.....

I've never tried pub, but I've used WLP002, 005 and 007 multiple times and never really found they produce a more complex ester palate than, say, WHC Old English or Notty.

Old English is my house yeast for everything above 5% that doesn't need particular esters/phenols or biotransformation. It's a brilliant workhorse that will ferment just about anything to ~78%, throw a little sweet citrus into the mix and then drop out like a stone.

 

[Miraculix]

I've never tried pub, but I've used WLP002, 005 and 007 multiple times and never really found they produce a more complex ester palate than, say, WHC Old English or Notty.

Old English is my house yeast for everything above 5% that doesn't need particular esters/phenols or biotransformation. It's a brilliant workhorse that will ferment just about anything to ~78%, throw a little sweet citrus into the mix and then drop out like a stone.

That's Nottingham, isn't it?

Pub is different than 002. I tried both. Pub is superior.

I wouldn't necessarily say it's more complex, these liquid stains just taste differently to me. I haven't been able to find something comparable in the dry world.

 

[HM-2]

That's Nottingham, isn't it?

Old English is supposedly a descendent of the Gales yeast obtained from Hale's Ales in Seattle.

 

[Unicorn_Platypus]

so, I just brewed a 1.092 OG American Barely wine last night with Nottingham yeast and made a 2 liter yeast starter with two packs of rehydrated dry yeast.

(with such a large cell count going into the starter, I wasn't going for replication as much as I was for just waking up the yeast to have it active)

I oxygenated with pure O2 for 120 seconds like I normally do with liquid yeast on high OG beers.

lag time was < 4 hours (at 60F). Pitched at 7pm and a nice healthy krausen starting to form by 11pm

I'll report back with attenuation and how the final product ends up tasting. I mashed at 154F and there was 4% crystal malt in the recipe. (I generally get 80% attenuation from Nottingham)

 

[Unicorn_Platypus]

so it's been exactly 3 days since pitching at 60F and holding there for the duration of initial fermentation. It's already 75% attenuated and starting to flocculate nicely. I'm ramping up the temp to the low 70s to let it finish. Hoping to have stable gravity readings by end of the week. It looks basically done, if I were to guess it doesn't attenuate much more than where it is now.

Sample tasted super clean for 9%+ ABV (absolutely no hot alcohol or off flavors). Still quite bitter with all the chinook I used plus the yeast still in suspension, but that should mellow with conditioning.

I'll keep the thread posted on the final product after its had time to cold condition in the keg for a couple weeks.

 

[VTMongoose]

I have switched to brewing my German weizens with the dry W-68 from Fermentis for the reasons HM-2 outlined. So far the performance has been vastly superior to what I previously got from the expensive white labs and Omega variants WLP300 and OYL-021. The yeast takes off faster, ferments faster, finishes slightly drier, and leaves substantially less off-flavors.

My rehydration procedure is probably based on bad theory, but given German Weissbiers have a yeast ester-driven flavor profile, and I am in the business of increasing that ester content as much as possible, what I do is I rehydrate about 24 hours prior to pitching in boiled and cooled filtered tap water, ~50 mL. I keep it in a mostly sealed 500 mL media bottle. What this should do is wake up the yeast and get them chewing through their glycogen reserves so they are somewhat depleted going into the growth phase and this should reduce the number of multiplications downstream and increase ester development. Believe me when I pop open the bottle after 24 hours to pitch, it smells like bananas. But the main thing is it just straight up reduces the lag relative to sprinkling it on top.

One batch the lag time was <6 hours with this method and the other batch (higher gravity) ~9 hours. By 24 hours the beer is down 5-15 points and by 48 it's 50-70% fermented.

 

[Miraculix]

I have switched to brewing my German weizens with the dry W-68 from Fermentis for the reasons HM-2 outlined. So far the performance has been vastly superior to what I previously got from the expensive white labs and Omega variants WLP300 and OYL-021. The yeast takes off faster, ferments faster, finishes slightly drier, and leaves substantially less off-flavors.

My rehydration procedure is probably based on bad theory, but given German Weissbiers have a yeast ester-driven flavor profile, and I am in the business of increasing that ester content as much as possible, what I do is I rehydrate about 24 hours prior to pitching in boiled and cooled filtered tap water, ~50 mL. I keep it in a mostly sealed 500 mL media bottle. What this should do is wake up the yeast and get them chewing through their glycogen reserves so they are somewhat depleted going into the growth phase and this should reduce the number of multiplications downstream and increase ester development. Believe me when I pop open the bottle after 24 hours to pitch, it smells like bananas. But the main thing is it just straight up reduces the lag relative to sprinkling it on top.

One batch the lag time was <6 hours with this method and the other batch (higher gravity) ~9 hours. By 24 hours the beer is down 5-15 points and by 48 it's 50-70% fermented.

Unorthodox but interesting methodology.

 

[Unicorn_Platypus]

so it's been exactly 3 days since pitching at 60F and holding there for the duration of initial fermentation. It's already 75% attenuated and starting to flocculate nicely. I'm ramping up the temp to the low 70s to let it finish. Hoping to have stable gravity readings by end of the week. It looks basically done, if I were to guess it doesn't attenuate much more than where it is now.

Sample tasted super clean for 9%+ ABV (absolutely no hot alcohol or off flavors). Still quite bitter with all the chinook I used plus the yeast still in suspension, but that should mellow with conditioning.

I'll keep the thread posted on the final product after its had time to cold condition in the keg for a couple weeks.

Well, I have to say, this beer came out super fricking awesome! Super clean, 75% attenuation, absolutely no heat for 9.5% ABV (dangerous). For high gravity beers where I want a neutral profile, I'll continue to follow this protocol.

Also just kegged an imperial stout 1.090 OG & 1.022 FG using the same starter method. Was active within 5 hours from pitching. Sample tasted great today. This one's going on oak for a few months.

 

[Miraculix]

Well, I have to say, this beer came out super fricking awesome! Super clean, 75% attenuation, absolutely no heat for 9.5% ABV (dangerous). For high gravity beers where I want a neutral profile, I'll continue to follow this protocol.

Also just kegged an imperial stout 1.090 OG & 1.022 FG using the same starter method. Was active within 5 hours from pitching. Sample tasted great today. This one's going on oak for a few months.

Glad to hear that! Works also for me every time. Even when I work with an expressive yeast. They don't get muted in my experience. But clean yeast really gets even a bit cleaner then normal. I also do this with my warm fermented lagers, this works really well.

 

[Unicorn_Platypus]

Glad to hear that! Works also for me every time. Even when I work with an expressive yeast. They don't get muted in my experience. But clean yeast really gets even a bit cleaner then normal. I also do this with my warm fermented lagers, this works really well.

In terms of using a calculator to estimate cell count I'd find it confusing for a more expressive yeast.

Lallemand says there's 5 billion cells per gram of yeast which would mean there's 55 billion per 11g pack. Most yeast pitching calculators treat 11g packs of dry yeast as having 200 billion. Which numbers do you use when calculating start cell count for your starters?

 

[Miraculix]

In terms of using a calculator to estimate cell count I'd find it confusing for a more expressive yeast.

Lallemand says there's 5 billion cells per gram of yeast which would mean there's 55 billion per 11g pack. Most yeast pitching calculators treat 11g packs of dry yeast as having 200 billion. Which numbers do you use when calculating start cell count for your starters?

I don't calculate. I go by first guessing from experience what should theoretically work and then I check if the result is what I wanted. Overpitching isn't really an issue. Underpitching however is a real thing. So erring on the high side is ok in my books.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Lallemand says there's 5 billion cells per gram of yeast which would mean there's 55 billion per 11g pack. Most yeast pitching calculators treat 11g packs of dry yeast as having 200 billion. Which numbers do you use when calculating start cell count for your starters?

They don't say there's 5 billion per gram - they guarantee at least 5 billion per gram. Big difference.

Somewhere on the interweb there's a guy who counted viable cells in several packs of dry yeast and was typically coming up with numbers of 22 billion/g IIRC - so trust the calculators.

The big exception is New England which hates being dried so Lallemand only guarantee 1 billion/g IIRC - and one might assume the real-world number is 5-10billion.

 

[Bassman2003]

The perpetual unknown. Yeast companies have been lying to homebrewers since day one. "Sure, you can direct pitch 50-70 billion half dead cells..." Only in recent years have the new entrants been truthful and forced the 'old guard' to improve their ways. I would be shocked to see 242 billion actual and viable yeast cells in a single 11g packet of dry yeast. The starter method seemed to work well and probably evens the score vs liquid. The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle.

 

[Miraculix]

Well said.