HOMEBREW Digest #5808 Thu 17 March 2011
FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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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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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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End of HOMEBREW Digest #5808, 03/17/11
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