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.[/quote]
I agree with your disagreement.
[quote=“FirstStateBrewer”]A friend of mine did just that and his beer was just barely drinkable.[/quote]Perhaps he tried to make something which requires good yeast character or fermented warm? It’ll make a decent APA or other hoppy style if you treat it right. I’m not advocating using it, and I don’t make beer with it, but the OP asked if bread yeast is “sufficient”, not if it makes a great beer.
Using supermarket yeast on some things I’ve seen in the supermarket like sorghum extract and agave extract and honey and molasses and brown sugar, even someone on food stamps can be a brewer. :roll:
I used bread yeast to make a batch of grocery store apple cider last year, and it tasted pretty bad for the first month or two. A lot of yeast flavor, and a lot of funky cardboardy flavors. I almost dumped it out. But… after a long time sitting in the bottles (maybe 2 months?) that cardboard flavor subsided and left a super crisp tasting cider that was really great. I’m not sure how that will work in beer and how it will age out. Maybe pitch two packets (they’re super cheap)?
I can’t get back to your original post, so I’m going to guess here - I’ll mention picking up a couple packets of dry brewers yeasts with your next order, as cheap insurance. They keep nearly forever in the fridge.
But back to bread yeast - I really don’t think that a company would actually grow yeast just for bread. Seems too easy to capture it as a by-product of brewing. I’ve seen on one of the brands of bread yeast that it is Lesaffre (same as some of the dry brewer’s yeasts.) Also wouldn’t surprise me if Budweiser or Miller sells off their yeast to make bread. If that’s the case, then bread yeast is really just beer yeast in a different package.
I worked in a pizzeria for a while 32 years ago here in NJ, and the yeast we used to make our dough (large bricks of compressed “fresh” yeast) was labeled “Budweiser”, complete with the familiar AB eagle logo. I don’t know if it was a regional thing or what…but our pizzeria was a mere 18 miles away from the Newark, NJ Anheuser Busch plant.
I had taken a brick of the yeast home and I used to keep it in the freezer, knocking a piece off of it when I wanted to brew . I brewed a number of batches with it back then and they turned out fine. Not stellar, but not bad either. Any hit/miss I experienced with it was probably more a reflection of the freshness (or not) of the extract I was still brewing with back then rather than the yeast. I think I remember reading somewhere that sometime shortly after that, maybe in the mid 80’s, AB sold their yeast division to Fleischmann’s.
By then I had scored some real bona-fide brewery ale yeast anyway.
Anyway, the point is that AB was in fact selling their surplus yeast from fermentations to bakeries and pizza joints like ours. It made great bread/pizza dough, and decent enough homebrew. And the “Bud” bakery yeast certainly performed better than the dried “beer” yeasts I’d been using for the 10 years prior to that.
We’ve certainly come a long way since then.
One other idea about getting yeast - do you have any brewpubs nearby? There are a lot of stories that friendly brewmasters will give away wort or yeast. Or any homebrew clubs nearby?
I’m pretty sure you;re wrong. Most dry yeast companies do have different yeasts for bread and beer. Bread yeast is bred to produce CO2, beer yeast is bred to ferment sugars. While there is some xover, they’re not the same.
[quote=“Denny”]While there is some xover, they’re not the same.[/quote]Weird as it may sound, baker’s yeast and brewer’s yeast are the same thing - saccharomyces cerevisiae - although obviously there has been some selective choices made for performance and character along the way. Like the professor, when I was a pro baker, we used Budweiser yeast cake compressed into one-lb bricks about the same size as a lb of butter. Check it out:
Denny,
I took your suggestion and ordered my yeast through NB AGAIN but it bumped up the shipping to the three day and shipped it right away! Much better than the 7.99 flat rate
For those of you who didnt read the original post, that was the issue. Having to wait for NB to take their time to ship and me not having ANY brew supply stores near me. Anyhow I ordered my stuff last night and it was billed and shipped today. So Saturday I will be brewing the NB cream ale using WL California Ale yeast.
Thanks for all the advise guys!
I never had any intention on using yeast from the grocery store, just was curious! lol
Is that gonna give you enough time to make a starter?
[quote=“EagleRising”]ordered my yeast through NB AGAIN but it bumped up the shipping to the three day and shipped it right away!
Much better than the 7.99 flat rate Anyhow I ordered my stuff last night and it was billed and shipped today. So Saturday I will be brewing the NB cream ale using WL California Ale yeast.
Thanks for all the advise guys!
[/quote]
Glad you took the advise and got hooked up, I expect no less from the NB warehouse folks, every time buddies out west did this with NB it was sent on Monday and would arrive on Friday just in time for weekend brews.
For a 1.040OG beer? Say it ain’t so…
For a 1.040OG beer? Say it ain’t so…[/quote]
It ain’t so! Sorry for the mistake.
Ok Denny,
I have developed a habit od simply starting up my starters (boy that sounds funny) on wednesday for my saturday brews. But… I have shifted with the season to session beers here lately. Are you saying that I shouldn’t do a started for these lower gravilty beers or is it a case of causing no harm but doing no good.
Barry
[quote=“Vulkin’”]Ok Denny,
I have developed a habit od simply starting up my starters (boy that sounds funny) on wednesday for my saturday brews. But… I have shifted with the season to session beers here lately. Are you saying that I shouldn’t do a started for these lower gravilty beers or is it a case of causing no harm but doing no good.
Barry[/quote]
In general, a starter is necessary for a beer of 1.040 OG or less, given that you have fairly fresh yeast. As always, best to check with mrmalty.com
For a 1.040OG beer? Say it ain’t so…[/quote]
It ain’t so! Sorry for the mistake.[/quote]
Whew…I never check Mr. Malty for anything less than 1.045. I thought I was doing it wrong!
I suppose as I wash and fridge my yeast for several months it is a good thing that is just always run a starter. Wake em up and reproduce em ya know.
