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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
		Digest Janitor: pbabcock at hbd.org


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Contents:
  Re: Dry Yeast (Robert Tower)
  Dry Lager yeasts (Thomas Rohner)
  dry yeast (Matt)
  RE:  Dry Yeast ("David Houseman")
  Re: Dry Yeast ("Andrew J. Korty")
  RE: Dry Yeast (David Thompson)


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       Projected 2011 Budget  $3271.04
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Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2011 00:09:23 -0700
From: Robert Tower <roberttower at sbcglobal.net>
Subject: Re: Dry Yeast

Rick Theiner inquires about the quality of dry yeasts. I'm a big 
proponent of dry yeasts. Sometimes working up a big old liquid starter 
can be a real big pain. The beauty of dry yeasts is that you can build 
up cell counts simply by tearing open another packet. And if you're 
doing big batches, that can be a real help.

I don't know what it was like in the bad old days of the 80s and early 
90s, but I've heard that the dry yeast wasn't too good then. Now, the 
dry yeasts are every bit as good as liquid in my opinion (and I've done 
a lot of testing and experimenting). Until recently, the main problem 
was lack of strain selection. In past 5 years or so, there's been an 
explosion of new dry yeast types. There's still not the selection you 
have with liquid yeasts (and I get the impression there never will be) 
but if the type of yeast you need is available in dry form there's no 
need to rule it out simply because it's dry.

I even prefer some of the dry selections to their liquid counterparts 
(K-97 Kolsch springs to mind). I've even had great success with the 
dried lager strains (S-23 is a good "steam" type strain and W34/70 is a 
great German lager strain). Nottingham is a great all-purpose strain, 
very neutral and drops nice and bright. S-04 is another great, super 
active (sometimes explosive!) English ale strain, more yeasty and 
characterful than Nottingham by comparison.

So far, the only dry yeast strain that I've tried that (again, in my 
opinion) doesn't hold up to the liquid strains are the hefeweizen 
strains. I was excited when Danstar came out with Munich but after 
trying it several times and getting mediocre results (sorry Keith!) I've 
gone back to liquid strains.

The only problem I see now is that for some reason (maybe one of the 
readers knows why) dry yeast prices have skyrocketed in the past year or 
two. It used to be they were all around $2-3 for an 11 gram packet. Now 
I've see (W34/70 in particular) packets going for $4-6. Wha'happen? I 
used to like to pitch 4 packets of W34/70 into a 5 gallon batch of lager 
fermented at 48 F in order to avoid having to step up over several days 
a massive starter. But since that could now cost around $20 to do, I 
haven't been doing many lagers lately. Danstar seems to have held the 
line on prices, but Fermentis and other brands' retail prices have gone 
through the roof.

Bob Tower


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Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2011 08:39:40 +0100
From: Thomas Rohner <t.rohner at bluewin.ch>
Subject: Dry Lager yeasts

Hello Rick

i can't say anything about Danstars new product.
We use Fermentis S-23 for a couple of years now. From my experience, 
it's a extremely stable, clean and forgiving yeast. We just finished our 
"Helles" series. We started with about 80g of dry S-23 yeast(for 50l or 
13 gal) in the first batch and in the following 6 batches, we took about 
1-2 cups of yeast slurry from the fermenters. The fermentation was quick 
and vigorous from the beginning. It made my heart break, when i emptied 
the yeast from the fermenter last saturday. The yeast looked and smelled 
so healthy, i wanted to keep it. But it will be some months, until we go 
bottom fermenting again.
At the moment, we make 2-3 batches "Berliner Weisse" with lactic mash 
souring. Later we make 3-4 batches wheat beers with Wyeast 3068. Then we 
probably go for some porters, mild and scotch ales.
Then it's time for some "Helle" and Oktoberfest beers again, because at 
that time, our annual brewery "Bierfest" has depleted the stock in our 
walk-in cooler.

For a lazy(still quality conscious)guy like me, there is nothing more 
convenient, than dry yeast. I brewed with various liquid yeasts and 
tried the yeasts of 4 surrounding breweries. To me, it's not worth the 
hassle anymore.(Except the Wyeast Weihenstephan 3068 for wheat beers)

Cheers

Thomas


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Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2011 01:03:50 -0700 (PDT)
From: Matt <baumssl27 at yahoo.com>
Subject: dry yeast

Dry yeast *can certainly* make excellent beers--that much is fact,
proven by experience and blind-tasted competition results.

Also a fact: with dry yeast it's much cheaper and/or easier to
obtain "standard recommended" cell counts.

Final fact: it's not easy to get a handle on cell counts.
Manufacturers tend to advertise a minimum of something like 6B
cells/gram, but there often the potential for more like 20B.
There is a paper out there from KU-Leuven that measures viable
cells after rehydration and it's in the range of 14B for many
strains.

Now for some opinions based on my experience and reading:

 - To avoid unpredictable performance you should rehydrate as
directed every time.  Why?--search HBD archives for a post by
Dr. Clayton Cone that explains the big changes in viability with
rehydration medium/temp.

 - US-05 is a great neutral yeast, but sometimes has an almost
lagery sulfer edge.  For that reason good for pseudo-lagers.

 - S-04 is one I never could get to work.  For me it always gave
an overwhelming bready taste.

 - T-58 is really interesting.  To me it's not stereotypically
"Belgian" in character because it's not all that attenuative.
But it creates some cool/strange tropical flavors.  Fun for 
wheat beers.

 - For me Nottingham tends to throw a tart apple aroma that can
be small or large but I can't control one way or the other.  I
haven't really tried hard though.

Matt






      


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Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2011 07:27:21 -0400
From: "David Houseman" <david.houseman at verizon.net>
Subject: RE:  Dry Yeast

Rick,

I had the same progression in using homebrewing yeast as you.   But at the 
first MCAB I had a discussion with George Fix about the quality of dry yeast 
and picked up a number of packets of dry yeast being given away.   Since 
then about 1/2 my brewing has been with dry yeasts.  These have been 
excellent.   Lager, ale, Weizen, even Belgian.   The choices aren't as wide 
to the homebrewer as Wyeast and Yeast Labs, but what is available is very 
good.  Lallamand and others weren't making dry yeast for the homebrewers; 
they were providing this in bricks (1kg?) to breweries.   So you go into 
your local brewpub and they give you yeast from the bottom of the 
fermenter -- the source of that yeast may well have been dry to start with. 
I do rehydrate the dry yeast prior to pitching, but other than that it's 
simpler and cheaper than dealing with the liquid yeast options.   The shelf 
life is much longer as well.    Now if I want something special, then I'm 
back to the popular liquid yeast options but frankly you can make many 
styles with few strains of yeast --- brewpubs do it all the time.

David Houseman



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Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2011 08:28:08 -0400
From: "Andrew J. Korty" <ajk at iu.edu>
Subject: Re: Dry Yeast


Hi, Eric.  I have experience with Fermentis brand dry yeasts.

I've used Safale S-04 (a high-flocculating, medium-attenuating
English-like strain) and US-05 (similar to Wyeast 1056) and Safbrew T-58
(a medium-flocculating, high-attenuating Belgian-like strain).  All have
produced great beers which have placed in local competitions.  US-05
should work well for any clean ale, and T-58 should work well for any
Belgian strong ale.  I don't like S-04 as well as Wyeast 1968 for the
maltiest of the English styles -- it seems to function more like the
drier Whitbread strain.

Safbrew S-33 is also decent for Belgians.  In my experience, it's
fruitier than T-58 and not as dry.  Since I value dryness in Belgian
ales, I stick with T-58.

I haven't found any dry yeasts I like for wheat beers or lagers.

Andrew Korty


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Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2011 12:42:06 -0500
From: David Thompson <david at dtphoto.com>
Subject: RE: Dry Yeast

Eric \"Rick\" Theiner asks about dry yeasts.

When I took up brewing again after a hiatus of 3 years, this being in 2003,
I began experimenting with dry yeasts.

With the single exception of a stout I make using Wyeast's 1084, Irish Ale,
I use dry yeasts now.  It's simpler than trying to make a starter and 
time the
brew session to make allowances for a smack-pack or a starter.

All my brews to date taste like they should.  Dry and crisp for American 
Pales,
malty for IPAs & pilsners, and bizarrely fruity & bubble-gumish for my 
Wits.
I use Fermentis mostly, especially the US-05.  I've used Danstar 
Nottingham,
which compares to my taste-buds nicely with Wyeast.  I've got some Coopers
to try on a lager here shortly....

Being dry, it's easy to store and easy to use.  I just sprinkle it on 
the cooled
wort - and by the next morning it's going strong.  It's cheap enough 
that I no
longer do any yeast harvesting or culturing.  Makes my brewday go quicker
and there's less change of yeast based issues.

- -- 
Dave

"Sponges grow in the ocean. That just kills me. I wonder how much deeper the
ocean would be if that didn't happen." -- Steven Wright




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