Common sense: Make dry yeast your everyday yeast...use liquids for specialty beers

There is no perfect beer yeast.  As a homebrewer I am always concerned when brewer's have a specific loyalty to one and only one yeast, or to one and only one yeast company.   As an example,  there is a guy who comes into the LHBS who only uses White Labs San Francisco Lager Yeast WL810.  In fairness he makes german style lagers, at ale temperatures.  He is relatively advanced and he knows he needs to aerate the ever living bejeezus out of the wort before pitch.   But he even makes his "IPA" (or IPL) with WL810.  uh... why?  There are so many yeast choices for us as home brewers now.

Today I thought I would present the merits of a yeast plan, and a plan for brewing in series.   I am in the middle of my All Grain Mr. Beer Lager series as many of you know.   But I also have a bunch of WLP500 that I want to get into a series of belgian style beers.

I use dry yeast most of the time.   I almost never make starters.  When I do make a starter now it is usually a 1 gallon batch of beer.   For me this is easier time wise than having to begin a starter 2 or 3 days before brew day.  You may have noticed extra pots in the background of my brew day photos.  Often those are 1 gallon batches that are for use as a starter in a week or two.   I like dry yeast because:

• The viability of the yeast is consistent.  It doesn't lose viability over longer periods of time, up to 2 years.
• The cell count is much higher.  1 package is generally adequate when put into a medium or low gravity beer that has been aerated.
• Simpler to use.  Fermentis doesn't even recommend rehydration any longer.  Just open the package and pitch it into the wort. 
• Variety is adequate.  When I started brewing, there were really only 4 dry yeast strains.  Now by my count there are 18 or 19 available to home brewers.  And any BJCP style can be made with them.  

What are your favorite yeasts?   For specialty beers, or beers I am working on for contests, I tend to select a specific yeast to create that character.   Often that means a liquid yeast. Often, but not always.

For my clean ales I prefer  Fermentis Safale US05.  I do not wash this yeast. It's to affordable to waste fridge space on.  I have made 1 gallon starters before for a DIPA that I knew would need more yeasty power.  US05 is my go to yeast strain for testing and recipe development.

I like Lallemand Nottingham for my english inspired ales and even for my brown ales and stouts.   I like the fruity character it throws off.  I also like how hard it flocculates.

For Saisons I like Lallemand Belle Saison.   It gives you the character of a Saison in a dry yeast.  When you ferment this yeast the trick it to follow a schedule.  Initial at 65 F then rise to 85 F over time.

For german wheat beers I like Fermentis WB-06.  Banana and Clove baby.

For most lagers - everyday thirst quenchers... I prefer Wyeast 2112. My champagne lager is clean and thirst quenching.  It is simple to brew, and a real crowd pleaser when muggles (non craft beer people) come over to the homestead.  The trick to getting this one to finish clean, and not give off steam beer characters is to keep it at or under 65 F, and to aerate the ever living bejezus out of it prior to pitch.

I also am known to ferment lagers with Fermentis W34/70.  When I do I do the primary fermentation at 65 F, then lager it out at 39 F for 3 - 5 weeks.   Gives a clean tasting lager.  I can assure all you nay sayers, that I have been in contact with the great people at Fermentis technical support,  they assure me that my method is sound and works just fine with 34/70.  So if all you have is an extra fridge, start lagering in smaller fermenters.  It's fun and it makes great beers.  

Series or campaigns

Whenever I use a specialty yeast that I like.  I save some of the yeast.  I don't do a traditional yeast wash.   I have been greatly educated in this by Steven Deeds at woodland brewing research.     His research and book are awesome for advanced home brewers.    I then brew a series of beers that use this yeast.

1. WLP500 in a Chimay Blue Clone (amazing beer)
1. Save the yeast 2 pints cleaned Steven's way
2. WLP500 2 pints are going next into a Dark Strong Ale (partial mash)
1. Save the yeast
3. WLP500 2 pints are going then into a Boulevard Quad Clone

What are your favorite yeasts and why?

Reusing Yeast with out washing... Pitching onto an active yeast cake... Pro's and Cons

A common practice in home brewing is washing yeast.   It is a fairly easy process, and I do it.  I especially do it with expensive or interesting yeasts that I want to preserve.  The process is detailed over and over again on the interwebs.  Don Osborn has a great video of how to do it on his YouTube channel.  If you haven't discovered "Don O" yet, you should.   He is a home brewer like us.  He has a lot of knowledge to share, but he's also still learning and perfecting his beers and his processes.  When he shoots his videos, he sometimes looks at the camera and gives himeself a note... like "remember extra cara 60 next time, the color is off".  It is a lot of fun.

The basic process of yeast washing is to pour your dregs into progressively smaller containers letting them settle each time, and leaving behind the trub, adding pre boiled and cooled water as needed. You are trying to get the milky active yeast that is just above the trub.  So you carefully pour off the low yeast wort, then you carefully pour the yeasty wort into a new container, then you let it settle (cold crashing can help) and you repeat till you have about a mason jar full of clean active yeast.   It will keep in your fridge for months.  There are adequate live active cells to ferment additional batches.


But there is another way.  An easier and maybe better way.  Just pour the new wort onto the old yeast.   It will take off like crazy.  No starter, No additional packages of yeast.

This video was shot just hours after a double brew day. These batches were pitched onto existing yeast cakes. Bonus footage of an APA that is clearing up nicely.  As you can see the fermentation is going strong.  It was so strong in fact that I had to add additional purified water to each of the fermentation locks. These were both medium gravity beers.   They finished primary in 96 hours at 64 F, falling from 1.048 and 1.062 to 1.01 and 1.013 respectively.

It is a great way to save money and pitch onto healthy yeast, but there are a few things to remember.  

• Always pitch onto a yeast that is appropriate for that style of beer. You don't want to try to create an Imperial American IPA on top of a Saison yeast.  You won't get the results you want.
• A simple strategy is to always pitch the same size batch.  Dont pitch a similar OG beer that is a smaller batch.  In other words dont pitch an 1.050 2.5 gallon batch onto a 1.050 5 gallon yeast cake.  That would be an over pitch.   You may pitch a huge beer onto a smaller batch.   In other words,  If you make a 1.040 pale ale 2.5 gallons and you are now making a 1.11 Barley Wine 5 gallons batch,  you will be fine.   
• Aerate -  There is no oxygen left in the yeast cake.   My strategy is to pour the wort onto the cake, and then pour back and forth between another fermenter a couple of times to get it aerated.  
• Always move from lower to higher OG beers.   There is risk of over pitch.  The compounds that yeast throw off early in fermentation are more complicated than just alcohol.  But you can mitigate this risk by moving up the OG chain.   
• My recent strategy
• Session IPA with new US05  1.042
• American Pale ale on the old US05  1.066
• White Stout (high og blonde ale) on the old US05  1.080
• Don't reuse yeast more than three or four times.
• Yeast (like all living organisms)  mutates over time.  These changes aren't noticeable in early generations, but may be very noticeable in later generations. 
• I know you've heard that you can use yeast over and over and over.  This is after all what commercial breweries do.  I will remind you that there are people with biology degrees working at commercial breweries, and they have expensive lab equipment to make sure everything is exactly how they want.  

It's an easy cost saving quality improving method you can follow.  Let me know what you think. 

Safale US 05 ... always a slow start, always good finish

US05  the workhorse of the home brew world.  You can make darn near any clean ale with the stuff.   I use it a lot.   I wash it, I use it again.  The washed yeasts are always great starters, and great clean finishers.  But every time I pitch a new sachet, even if i re hydrate, it takes 24 hours to really get going.  

Hey, I'm not complaining, the chico strain is great, but I think it is important to put it out there.  Dry US05 is a slow starter.  So there is your public service announcement for the morning.  

Risen APA 16 hours after pitch. 5.5 G in a 7.5 Glass Carboy

 

Risen APA 28 hours after pitch.