Danstar Nottingham Ale yeast- rehydrate or not?

Yeast & Fermentation
1

Hi all,
I’m preparing to do my second brew, the Irish Red Ale. I’ve got the Danstar Nottingham dry yeast with the kit. Instructions say you add to Wort dry but the pack says to rehydrate in 87-92 degree water for 15 minutes. Which is the preferred method?
Thanks,
Jack

2

My experience is that it doesn’t make much difference in practice. In theory it’s best to rehydrate, but several tests have shown no real world difference.

3

Sprinkle on top and call it good. Works for me every time.

4

Dry it is. Thanks to you both for the quick response.
Jack

5

The vast advantages of re-hydration is an urban myth, in my opinion.

6

Agreed.

7

Not to me. I think that proper hydration reduces lag by at least 4 hrs.

Remember, if the rehydration water feels warm, its probably too hot and has the potential to kill some yeast. I don’t pitch the yeast into the water until it feels lukewarm or cool.

8

I used this yeast on the Sweet Stout kit from NB and pitched it dry about 8PM and I saw signs of fermentation before I went to bed.

9

Jack- a few things to look out for with Notty:

  1. It’s a very active yeast, so be prepared with a blowoff tube.
  2. Because it’s very active, it generates a lot of heat, especially in the 1st 2-3 days. And temps in the 70* range will produce some esters(some people like that,but not me). So make sure you control the temp over the 1st 3-4 days. After that you can let it rise without problems.
    Me- I rehydrate, but I’m not rabid about it either way. I figure it’s a minor extra step that doesn’t hurt, may help, so why not?
10

[quote=“mabrungard”]Not to me. I think that proper hydration reduces lag by at least 4 hrs.

Remember, if the rehydration water feels warm, its probably too hot and has the potential to kill some yeast. I don’t pitch the yeast into the water until it feels lukewarm or cool.[/quote]

Martin, it’;s been my experience that there’s really no difference between a 4 hour lag and a 24 (or more) hour lag in terms of beer quality. Have you seen a difference?

11

Well, according to this…

…(an actual scientific study!) it’s real:

Link:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/j.2050-0416.2011.tb00482.x/epdf

Also, the yeast manufacturers recommend rehydrating prior to pitching:

[quote]Before dry yeast can start fermenting, they need to absorb the water they lost during the drying process.

Yeasts are living organisms and rehydration temperature is critical for good yeast performance.
Fermentis recommends that top fermenting (ale) yeasts are rehydrated at a temperature between 25-29°C (77-84°F) and that bottom fermenting yeasts (lager) are rehydrated at a temperature range of 21-25°C (69-77°F).

Rehydration is done in a vessel outside the fermentor. The objective is to reduce the lag phase : the time necessary for the yeasts to start fermenting sugars to alcohol after inoculating the wort.

Rehydration is a simple procedure.[/quote]

Link:
http://www.brewwithfermentis.com/tips-tricks/yeast-rehydration/

Rehydration takes so little time and effort that it’s the cheapest insurance policy of all, provided the rest of your processes and practices are sound.

12

I appreciate science. I use science every time I brew. But when science and my personal experience disagree, guess which one wins?

13

+1

I’m also sometimes guilty of letting my personal intuition supersede hard science, which gets other people upset, while of course I myself am just fine with it. :twisted:

However this is one case where loads of personal experience says sprinkle sprinkle works just fine.

14

Would you notice if you under-pitched by 30% as a result of die-off from directly pitching? I am certain that I couldn’t notice. Possibly if I had a 10G batch split in two and did a direct pitch into one and a dehydrated pitch into another.

15

If you really truly honestly must have a hard science absolute fact-based answer, then you should run your own experiments.

16

I follow the manufacturers instructions with most products.

17

I know I’m going to regret posting this. And people please ignore it if you’re upset by it.
But… The quote " But when science and my personal experience disagree, guess which one wins?" reminds me of the Climate Change deniers and the evolution of the species nonbelievers.
Sorry, I’m usually not this snarky. Must be the beers talking. I’ve been sampling and comparing this year’s Bock vs. last year’s Dopplebock. :cheers:

18

I know I’m going to regret posting this. And people please ignore it if you’re upset by it.
But… The quote " But when science and my personal experience disagree, guess which one wins?" reminds me of the Climate Change deniers and the evolution of the species nonbelievers.
Sorry, I’m usually not this snarky. Must be the beers talking. I’ve been sampling and comparing this year’s Bock vs. last year’s Dopplebock. :cheers: [/quote]
I kinda had the same gut reaction; but I think it’s more acknowledging that while in theory, there is no difference between theory and practice; in practice there is.

I am kinda digging on the term “Rehydration Nonbeliever” though.

:cheers:

19

Rehydrating in sanitized water enables the yeast to better control what passes their cell wall when they are pitched into a semi hostile environment like wort.
Yeast makes beer.
I like to give the yeast every advantage I possibly can so I always rehydrate.

20

[quote=“redneckbrew”]Rehydrating in sanitized water enables the yeast to better control what passes their cell wall when they are pitched into a semi hostile environment like wort.
Yeast makes beer.
I like to give the yeast every advantage I possibly can so I always rehydrate.[/quote]

And there’s certainly nothing wrong with that. It’s simply that quite a few of us have seen no difference when we rehydrate, so we don’t do it.