Does anyone know if the dry yeast packets from the grocery store are sufficient for beer brewing? I dont have a brew store anywhere near me and NB takes WAAAAYY to long to ship stuff out.
You can make beer with them, but it won’t be good beer. Where do you get the rest of your supplies? Why not get yeast from that source?
I get everything from Northern Brewer. It just takes them way to long to process and ship an order. I live in norther NY and there is nothing near here to get supplies from.
You can save yeast from 1 batch and use it on the next. Use it up to 5 times or so.
On your next order, get 2-3 packets of different dry yeast to have on hand. Keep it in the refrigerator.
Also order some extra DME to make a starter to wake up the saved yeast that is a couple months old in your refrigerator.
One thing to do when ordering from online stores like NB is to look at the second level of shipping.
IE: brewsaver 7.99 takes 7-14 days depending on your shipping zone and if you upgraded to the next level of lets say 8.01-25.00 depending on weight of average order it will ship typically the next day instead of being in a holding pattern for 1-10 days in the warehouse. Because you are giving NB the luxury of time to process when using the lowest cost shipping such as brewsaver.
Or to control costs ship a bunch of kits or other bulky items using the 7.99 and then the items such as the kit you want asap along with yeast or other light items in a separate order expedite the shipping by choosing the EX: 12.80 etc…that will arrive within max 4 days to the east coast after order.( If your north like Canada border north this can be a 5 day zone for small pockets)Another key is to order over the weekend and note in special instructions on the expedited order that you would like it to ship on Monday if at all possible to arrive within the same week otherwise it could ship on Tuesday/ Wednesday and be held by the shipping CO over the weekend.
I am not going to get into the huge discussion on this topic as it warrants its own thread if discussion is sought, detriments are far too great to advocate it in practice. If original advice is followed the yeast you will reuse in this practice are not in the right condition to ferment and you create “sick” ferments by reusing old re pitches stored like this. Bottom line this practice is not ideal.
The best way would be to stock up on pure and properly put into “storage mode” by the lab (being the key to the said avoided long discussion of pro/con of fridge stored yeast repitches) wyeast/white labs cultures and step up appropriately for cell viability depending on age if liquid cells are desired otherwise dry is best for long term storage.
If I understand correctly, then I’m guilty of “sick ferments”, as are Rogue and many other breweries. I wonder why my (and their) beers turn out so well…
I also take it that you do not reuse yeast unless you are able to put new wort on the yeast cake right after transferring the beer off of it?
Denny you know better than that and/ or you misunderstood my advocacy against the said storage quoted. Rouge or others use a propagator that is re fed sterile wort in some fashion during storage or the strain is being recirculated throughout ferments every 48-72 hours and/or the lab work is extensive to prevent sick or glycogen starved yeast if stored under wort.
If brewing science such as Siebel, FIx, MBAA white papers are followed(which they are by commercial breweries as it is the only way to consistent and reliable ferments) it spells out the difference between correct procedure and Pseudo home brewer conceived procedure. Now on the other hand Yes, you can store yeast under wort for A period but to do so long term is detrimental to yeast health. Rouge and other commercial breweries absolutely do not store re pitches in normal fridge temp for long periods without keeping them continuously fed bottom line.
I did mention this topic in of itself needed a whole new thread if discussion is warranted as it can not be explained away in one sentence.
Yes, that’s why I said if I understood you correctly. I’m not certain about Rogue’s system for reusing yeast but I don’t think it’s as sophisticated as you describe. I’ll see John in a couple weeks so I’ll try to remember to ask him what they do. What would you say is the longest that you should store yeast under beer in a typical consumer fridge? My own results are that a few weeks is no problem, a month or 2 is pushing it and you should make a starter with a portion if the stored yeast. I’ve reused stored yeast that’s 5 months old, but it took some babying and isn’t something I recommend as a general practice. As to the “scientists”, I appreciate their recommendations use them to temper my own practices, but my own experience is always what I rely on.
I think we are all on the same page still, Two weeks under wort is accepted as general practice by homebrewers although I think you will agree its far from the ideal of 24-72 hours in between pitching slurries. Exactly as you stated past this 2 weeks is really pushing the boundaries and will create yeast health issues. For new brewers the practice should be restricted to a few days max or not at all, is the kind of sentiment I am leaning heavily on here about advocating away from long term storage in this fashion. A new pure and properly prepared for storage pitch is super cheap compared to wasting time making less than ideal beer if you dont fully understand the theory and science you should be tempering your own practice with.
I certainly can’t take issue with that. I’ve thrown away questionable saved yeast and started fresh many times. If you’re not certain about the health and quality of your yeast, that’s the sensible thing to do.
What about getting yeast from one of these guys? they’ve gotta be closer to you than NB.
http://www.brooklyn-homebrew.com/Brooklyn_Homebrew/Home.html
cheers
Same here. I’ve gone even beyond 10 re-uses and always had robust ferments and great results. It sits in the fridge in a foil covered flask, under it’s own beer. If i reuse it within three-four weeks, I just dump it in and it takes off like a shot. Any longer than that and I feed it up a bit.
Never had a dud, even going light to heavy and back again.
Fleischmann’s dry yeast makes perfectly good beer - aerate the wort and pitch and ferment in the low 60s.
By my logic, yeasts are living organisms and if they aren’t healthy, they’ll die off sooner and flocculate quickly to the bottom of the fermenter. I always harvest the top layers of the settled yeast to collect the youngest, healthiest yeast and it’s worked for me so far through up to 10 re-pitches. Yeast has evolved over thousands of years, so it’s not like they’re milk with an expiry date.
Really? K. You might need to first understand the nature of my post before you droll on about a matter that although relates to yeast is far and away from what I’m speaking to. Which is this:
Furthermore it seems nobody wanted to take my early suggestion of starting a fresh thread on the matter, so let me add one last post to give clarity to at least the basics of what I am trying to convey today to avoid further speculation and theory into what I am trying to bring to light on this topic.
(Fix 1999)
“In order to make use of wort nitrogen and sugars, the yeast cells must be permeable. This condition is created by sterol synthesis, for which yeast food reserves, most notably glycogen, are needed. This requirement is why starving yeast can display erratic behavior at this stage(Quain and Tubb, 1982; Murray et al., 1984)”
So healthy yeast have good glycogen reserves when first pitched and this is lowered during fermentation’s and rebuilt when they are going into post ferment stages so this is why it is safe to re pitch from batch to batch as the yeast are continuing to ebb and flow through healthy life cycles. But the SOP of re pitching is not what I am speaking to. I am speaking to storage of harvested yeast ONLY.
To further illustrate Fix then follows up to state this:
(Fix 1999)
“Ideally yeast should be repitched 24 to 48 hours after collection, since glycogen reserves are depleted rapidly during storage,(Murray et al.,1984) although the rate of depletion also depend on yeast strain and brewing conditions. As a general rule, yeasts stored for any amount of time should be ''fed” with fresh sterile wort to ensure that the storage medium has adequate yeast assimilable sugars and amino acids."
Also to help anyone that would further misinterpret my intent, the comments made today speak only to yeast stored under wort in the fridge. It does not mean I am speaking about other effective long term storage methods such as slants/ frozen yeast strains.
Really? K. You might need to first understand the nature of my post before you droll on about a matter that although relates to yeast is far and away from what I’m speaking to. Which is this:
My post was actually in reply to the professor’s post about the number of times he’s repitched and had nothing to do with your post about the length of time the yeast sits between pitches. I completely agree that you should make a starter to wake up old yeast in the fridge.
[quote=“ITsPossible”]Furthermore it seems nobody wanted to take my early suggestion of starting a fresh thread on the matter, so let me add one last post to give clarity to at least the basics of what I am trying to convey today to avoid further speculation and theory into what I am trying to bring to light on this topic.
(Fix 1999)
“In order to make use of wort nitrogen and sugars, the yeast cells must be permeable. This condition is created by sterol synthesis, for which yeast food reserves, most notably glycogen, are needed. This requirement is why starving yeast can display erratic behavior at this stage(Quain and Tubb, 1982; Murray et al., 1984)”
So healthy yeast have good glycogen reserves when first pitched and this is lowered during fermentation’s and rebuilt when they are going into post ferment stages so this is why it is safe to re pitch from batch to batch as the yeast are continuing to ebb and flow through healthy life cycles. But the SOP of re pitching is not what I am speaking to. I am speaking to storage of harvested yeast ONLY.
To further illustrate Fix then follows up to state this:
(Fix 1999)
“Ideally yeast should be repitched 24 to 48 hours after collection, since glycogen reserves are depleted rapidly during storage,(Murray et al.,1984) although the rate of depletion also depend on yeast strain and brewing conditions. As a general rule, yeasts stored for any amount of time should be ''fed” with fresh sterile wort to ensure that the storage medium has adequate yeast assimilable sugars and amino acids."
Also to help anyone that would further misinterpret my intent, the comments made today speak only to yeast stored under wort in the fridge. It does not mean I am speaking about other effective long term storage methods such as slants/ frozen yeast strains.[/quote]
FWIW, I agree with all of that. I appreciate your clarifications.
I disagree. A friend of mine did just that and his beer was just barely drinkable. Why go to all that trouble just to make bad beer? You can buy bad beer ready-made in the store.
