Hello,
I’m about to brew an American Wheat this evening and I’m going to be using dry yeast for the first time. I have always used smack packs in the past. With the dry, do I just pitch it in to the wort out of the pack? Should I still sanitize the package like a smack pack? Any advice is greatly appreciated.
Thanks
You can dip the pack in StarSan for insurance, then just open it and sprinkle onto your wort. No need to hydrate. :cheers:
there is a lot of debate on wether to hydrate dry yeast or just sprinkle it in. short story is that yes you can just sprinkle it in. try to pitch yeast at proper fermantation temp and make sure you aerate well. you might have a longer lag time but dont worry it’ll start a bubbling. yes you do need to sanitize the package and anything you use to open it with. happy brewing!
We just bottled ours done w/05 dry. We will make this twice more this year, the only thing different we may try is hydrating it in 33~50cl of wort during cooling or adding .5 more dry than called for?? I don’t wanna mess with it too much as it came out great! We used Colorado honey for priming & have dubbed ours “Friday the 13th Wheat”. We plan to brew this each and every Friday the 13th from this year forth…
Thanks, another follow up question… would it be a good idea to pitch two packs of the yeast? Would this help with fermentation, or would it just be a waste of yeast? I have always read that the more healthy yeast the better. In the future I want to start trying to make starters, but for now this is what I’ve got. It’s hard here where I live because we don’t have any brewshops around, and the nearest one is in NB in Minneapolis which is a 300 mile drive. They also don’t ship to Canada, so I have to make a trek across the border to pick up anything I order. Anyways, thanks for the help!
One pack will be fine.
@Glue Master, 1 pkg being enough, what is your take on hydrating the Safale US-05 Ale yeast pkg, If I may ask Your Opinion? Do you have preference to any particular formula? I do not have a yeast starter yet nor stir-plate but see it coming soon…
[quote=“Shanhorn”]what is your take on hydrating the Safale US-05 Ale yeast pkg[/quote]I’ve done it both ways with good result, though I usually just dump it in with out rehydrating.
No need for a starter or stir plate with dried yeast - both do more harm than good. Simply rehydrate if you want a higher pitch rate, or buy more packets. You’ll see roughly 50% cell death without rehydrating (which is still usually adequate for most beers ~1.050 starting gravity, due to the massive amount of cells packed into dried yeast packaging).
Hmmm, I’ve been using a starter for every brew I do, whether it’s dry, smack pack or white Labs. Now I’m wondering if I’m doing it wrong after reading the prior posts. With dry, I’ve been hydrating, then pitching that into the starter. Do I need to stop this? I also infuse with oxygen when I pitch the starter into the primary.
Paul
So if in fact I wanted to hydrate a pkg of Dry Brewers Yeast I can boil 1 cup of water in 2 cup pyrex, cool it to pitching temp and pour yeast in. Mixing once w/sanitized stir tool to be sure all the yeast has been hydrated, once the wort is at pitching temp agitate the wort and pitch the hydrated yeast…we will be trying this procedure, Of course I will use sanitized foil to cover pyrex…
Reading the PDF on US-05 on rehydrating. To me, everything is fine until they say “maintain a gentle stirring for 30 min”. There is not way in hell I am going to stand there and stir for 30 min. If I did everything they say to do, I would use liquid yeast and be able to pitch as soon as it is in the fermenter. That is why I mostly use liquid yeast, or just toss in an extra sachet of dry yeast. Besides, dry yeast pricing is inching toward the price of liquid.
If you follow the instructions and simply stir the rehydrated yeast for a few minutes before pitching it works fine. I brewed a half dozen batches last year using rehydrated S05 and this worked fine. The idea is to thoroughly mix the yeast into solution. I think I would follow the thirty minute regimen if I were rehydrating in a flask and used a stir bar and stir plate.
You can make starters with dry yeast but it isnt really worth the effort. Just rehydrate another package or a measured portion from one.
I have experinced unpleasant flavors in every batch of beer Ive brewed where two packets dry was pitched straight into the wort.was
Aren’t there any brewshops in Canada that would ship to you?
I don’t remember off the top of my head, but in the brewshop listings in BYO there is at least one U.S. shop that claims to ship internationally.
I can see that the wyeast we used in our 2nd brew had few possible advantages over the dry pitch we used in our 1st. 1 being liquid it mixed well vs sitting on top like fish food. another is our aeration as we may not have done enough before pitching on the 1st vs good aeration on the 2nd. one more is pitch temp may have been too high on 1st as we had no real lag in krueasen but it didn’t last a week before dropping to the bottom & a very light 2nd had started & stopped in 13 days total ferm time vs today is day 8 w/2 inch krueasen on the beer made w/liquid yeast pitched @ exact 76F makes us wonder if it will be done in 2wks total ferm time, my guess is; NO. We do plan to use the dry hydrated on the next ‘Friday the 13th Wheat’ in April 2012.
When pitching dry, how long does it take to see the fermentation?
Our 1st batch of ‘Friday the 13th Wheat’ was made w/Safale 05 pitched dry, We had signs of active fermentation within 6 hrs of pitch time. The actual very active part was only about 5 days, I want to see a longer active time next time that is why we say we will hydrate it during wort cooling in 2 cups of 70F H2O then pitch!
Take a looky at the instructions from Fermentis for S05
http://www.fermentis.com/FO/pdf/CB/EN/Safale_US-05_CB.pdf
They recommend 80F plus or minus 6 degrees.
What I recommend is boiling the water in the vessel you plan to rehydrate first. This sanitizes the water and the vessel at the same time. Use a tempered glass vessel like a pyrex cup or a borosilicate flask or beaker. Boil the water for about 10 minutes, remove and cover with foil. Place it in an ice bath to cool it and check the temp with a sanitized thermometer. Once you hit the right temp, follow the directions from Fermentis. By the time it’s done rehydrating you should be close to your wort temp. If not within ten degrees, you might want to temper the yeast by adding small amounts of cooled wort to the vessel, mix it for a few minutes and repeat. Alternately what I do is return it to the ice bath for five minutes at a time, then mix, check the temp, and repeat until I get close enough. Should only take one or two dips in the ice bath depending on air temps and how long you have rehydrated it.
That does sound IDEAL, I may not have IDEAL conditions or equipment now & when April rolls around we will be looking closer at some hydration options…THANKS
Works like a charm for me every time. My beer has been tasting pretty good, might even say great and I don’t have any issues with lag times, stuck fermentations, or getting yeast that was mishandled or expired or whatever. S05 is just great stuff and works a bit better when rehydrated properly IMO.
