Sorry to wake this from the dead, but what I am hearing is that there is no definitive work on yeast biology, propagation, controlling flavor profiles, etc -- written by/for the homebrewer?
I'm a believer that yeast is the most important part of achieving the beer you want, followed closely by the other 3 parts. I know there are others out there with me. While the information on this forum and others scattered all over the interweb are excellent sources of general information and personal experience, I think it would be great to have one place where someone getting into brewing, the intermediate brewer and advanced alike can all browse data and share their experiences about very particular aspects.
I guess I'm talking about a Wiki of sorts, but I think it has to start with a backbone of data. Call it an outline, organized scattering of methodical semi-scientific methods/results, whatever. Like PseudoChef said, this particular aspect of brewing is so bound to science/biology that you can't avoid it. However, what if it was presented in such a way as to give the reader only as much as they want to? I'm thinking an online book, maybe a newsletter, that is continuously updated with personal experiences and experiments, where after some time it turns into a source of information only as detailed as the reader wants.
For example, the section for the life cycle of the yeast cell may begin with an overview of population growth - lag, exponential, stationary phases - tied to how this relates to your beer. If you want to know how glucose is broken down at that point, why yeast prefer one sugar to another, things that affect it and what you can do as the brewer, the reader can click on that and learn as much as he/she wants.
I'm still looking for that golden book about yeast culture and how it affects your beer. Lots of texts exist about brewing in general, ad nauseam, but none that I'm aware of that gives the homebrewer the ability to fully understand and use their brewing fungal prowess.
If anyone here is still following me (I'm kind of writing stream of consciousness), what I'd like to hear is two-fold:
1) What sources on homebrew (or not) yeast culture out there are the ones you most often use or are the most helpful and why, and
2) What kinds of information are missing. For example, I read a lot about how to properly propagate yeast starters, based on what historically has worked in the past. What I don't see is data, strain-specific or not, saying that yes, 1:10 dilution of starter to wort will give you the quickest fermentation without lag time, or based on X number of replications using 1.030 wort with a stirbar allowed to grow for 24 hours leads to a cell density between 180-210 million cells per ml. Without the stirbar, you can expect X # of cells. You know where I'm going. The information is out there and in your brewing notes. We just need to organize it.
I'm a microbial biotechnologist by education and training, so I'm not just putting this out there for someone else to take on. I'm more than willing to organize the effort. This forum has such a vast amount of information floating around its servers and all of your beer soaked grey matter, let's find out if something like this is needed.
Let's hear your thoughts.