White Labs substitute?

[Brewdog80]

I used to brew exclusively with wyeast, but when I restored after a few years, I couldn't find any local and used imperial a couple of time, then I tried dry when store had no liquid ale yeast I needed. Good result. Used dry Nottingham from lallemad(sp) for a number of brews and zero issue and good beer. I found crossmyloof (from the UK) and for the past 3 beers, their dry has been performing well. The do have a Cali ale dry and I'll use it soon enough after the stout I'm brewing today with their ale yeast. Try dry at about $2 a brew

 

[Cheshire Cat]

I use Crossmyloof yeasts for most of my brews they are great people selling quality products. I also buy my hops from them.

 

[Zoltan]

the new packs for twice the price also have about twice the yeast. If you used to use 2 packs of the older White Labs packs, you should be able to switch to using 1 pack of the new packaging.

According to the White Labs website, I still need 2 pouches for my original gravity of 1.078, so I guess I don't believe the new pouches are twice as big as the old.

 

[Cheshire Cat]

I’ve never used 2 packs of dry yeast even for a Belgian Triple at 9.3%. Why do you need more than one pack of liquid yeast when the slurry can be reused.

 

[Zoltan]

I have no interest in culturing or saving yeast. I don't brew beer that often.

 

[CascadesBrewer]

According to the White Labs website, I still need 2 pouches for my original gravity of 1.078, so I guess I don't believe the new pouches are twice as big as the old.

Well, you would likely have needed 3 or 4 of the older packs for a correct pitch rate for that gravity of beer. Even a fresh 200B cell pack from Imperial or Omega would be an underpitch. It is pretty well accepted that White Labs doubled the cell counts in the newer packs. Or at least increased the cell count. White Labs was always a bit closed lip on the actual cell counts in the older packs.

 

[VikeMan]

I am not sure if it was pointed out, but the new packs for twice the price also have about twice the yeast.

No. About 52% more yeast.

I thought they used to claim the old packs were 100B cells, and the new packs are "double", but the specs put them closer to 150B cells.

Yep.

If you'll excuse me, I'm going to open up my $5.99 9.25 oz bag of Doritos.

ETA: I still primarily use White Labs strains, because I know what to expect from each. But I am a bit annoyed.

 

[Bobby_M]

I don't grasp the gripe about the packaging and it being plastic, aren't all liquid yeasts packed in some sort of plastic? Also as mentioned above the new packs have more cells and 1 pack will replace 2 of previous version. I could be wrong but I feel like I read somewhere that the new packs are supposed to keep the yeast count viability better.

If you open up any pitch calculator like the one in Brewfather or even the one on Yeastman.com (whitelabs site), and toy around with a couple fake batches, such as 5.5 gallons of 1.065 wort, you'll find that neither a single old style WL pouch (80B cells), nor the new pouch (150B cells) is enough yeast. It is true that if you are the type to just throw money at the situation, it would be 3 of the older packs ($8 x 3) or two of the newer packs ($14 x 2) but my math says the new packs lose. If you chose to make a 1 liter starter as a cost savings (or if the shop only had one pack left), you could get away with just ONE of the older packs at $8 and now you're forced to by the $14 pack for no gain.

On the other hand, 200B cell packs of Omega remain about $9. You can build a starter from there. Hell if you had to buy two because they are a month old, you're still at $18. The only way WL wins is if they have an exclusive strain you want or if you have WL and Omega packs in your hand at the store and the Omega pack is like 4-5 months older than WL.

 

[CascadesBrewer]

No. About 52% more yeast.

I wonder. I recall some statements from Chris White or White Labs that the new packs had "double" the cell count. With the new packs, instead of sticking a big label on the pack stating "200 Billion Cells", they instead throw out pitch rate values, cells per ml counts, a rather confusing pitch rate calculator, and a QR code lookup. I have not purchased one of the new packs, but as I recall even the quality page says something like "manufactured to contain x cells per ml" vs an actual lab measured value. When you dig through the data, it points at a pack with around 150B cells. (They do also claim "94.9% cell viability after 6 months" which seems impressive if true.)

Does that mean that the older packs actually had 75B cells? Even if it was commonly said that a pack contained 100B cells, I don't recall much information from White Labs about the cell counts per pack.

This is a marketing page with info on the new homebrew packs: White Labs

 

[VikeMan]

Does that mean that the older packs actually had 75B cells?

Maybe. But the old PP packs, at least during some of their run, had the words "Made to contain over 100 billion cells."

 

[MaxStout]

Maybe. But the old PP packs, at least during some of their run, had the words "Made to contain over 100 billion cells."

WL's weasel words, lol.

 

[Bobby_M]

WL's weasel words, lol.

Well, you know... best intentions but hey we're human.

 

[jturman35]

Guess I’m done with White Labs.