Questions tagged [yeast]
Yeasts are micro-organisms used in brewing to produce alcohol during the process of fermentation.
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How to clean yeast
I like reusing yeast to save money, and I like having my own "house" yeast. However sooner or later my yeast eventually dies and becomes unusable. I have a feeling that each time I repitch, I'm ...
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Brewing Solid Things: Can Leftover Yeast Be Used for Bread?
I find myself baking a couple loaves of bread just about every weekend. Has anyone tried reusing their yeast from brewing for baking bread? I've heard that using some of the spent grain in bread ...
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Reusing yeast at home
Reusing yeast at home is something I'm incredibly interested in, but haven't found the time to learn enough about it just yet.
What are the basic steps for harvesting, cultivating, or whatever other ...
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Fermentation Temperature Control Methods
What different methods do people use to maintain or control fermentation temps? This includes maintaining temps for both Ales and Lagers. For most climates, active control is necessary for doing ...
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Open-Fermented or Native Yeast Beers
I've always been very careful about control and sanitation with beer. But with my wine I do some native yeast Pinots, and some friends of mine are into the same with beers- they like funky, ...
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How to grow yeast?
I have read that it is possible to grow your own yeast, but I have not been able to find exact instructions. I would like to grow my own yeast so that I don't have to spend money on those small ...
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Always making a starter vs. following package description
I have noticed that the smackpacks say on the package that the package is meant for a 5 gal. batch and that you should pour the pack directly into the wort.
On the otherhand - nearly everyone tells ...
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What Type and Power of Microscope For Observing Yeast Cells
I'm interested in buying a microscope that I can use to observe yeast cells. Ideally, I'd like to use this to count cells in region and do calculations to get estimated populations (though I don't ...
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Why is it bad to pitch too much yeast?
What are the effects of over-pitching? Where is the line for, say, a 1.050 beer?
There is also a question for to under-pitching.
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Using trub directly vs. yeast rinsing.
Sometimes referred to as "yeast washing," the process of yeast rinsing separates the yeast from the hops and break material in the trub. Most brewers who reuse yeast — and store it for long ...
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Should I ferment a new batch directly on the yeast cake generated by the previous batch?
I'm going to re-use the yeast cake from a low-gravity batch to ferment a high-gravity batch.
Can I just put the wort directly on it? Does it then need to be agitated?
Is it worth the risk of ...
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How do I keep yeast from a strain that I've bought?
I'd like to stop buying yeast all the time, especially when I use the same strain repeatedly.
This is especially a problem when it comes to seasonal strains. I'd like to brew with WLP351 Bavarian ...
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Why do you aerate wort at first and try to keep oxygen out later?
Why should you aerate the wort before pitching yeast but then try to avoid allowing oxygen into it later in the process? What is going on with the yeast that makes oxygen good at first but bad later?
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Dry yeast vs wet yeast
I've always thought it to be common knowledge that wet yeast is better than dry yeast for home-brewing. This was confirmed by Sam Calagione at his Authors at Google talk where he suggested that using ...
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What's the best method to catch a strain of wild yeast for homebrewing?
I'm interested in learning about brewing using wild yeast, but I wonder what is the best method to catch a strain that would produce good results in homebrewing. And of course how to ensure that it ...
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When is it necessary to pitch fresh yeast for bottle conditioning?
I've read that you can leave an ale to secondary for months and enough yeast will remain in suspension that you won't need to pitch additional yeast when bottling. But are there times when you do ...
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Can I dry my own yeast to make it relatively shelf stable? How?
Obviously, it can be done, as dry yeast works for fermenting beer. I go sometimes a month or two between batches, and carrying over one yeast culture across beers seems a bit of a pain. How is dried ...
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What is the minimum amount of time required for a yeast starter?
It is generally advised to leave a yeast starter for at least 24 hours to get optimal yeast growth.
If I only have a few hours, is there any point making a starter from my liquid yeast pack?
Is ...
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How do I culture yeast from a commercial beer? Is it legal?
If I like the flavor profile of a yeast in a commercial beer, how would I go about culturing it?
I have some very basic lab equipment, but I can buy anything that's reasonably priced.
Also, would it ...
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Making a Yeast Starter
It seems that there are varying opinions about the size your starter should be. What is the basic rule-of-thumb for 5 and 10 gallon batches?
How much water should be used?
How much malt/malt extract ...
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How do I make a Yeast Starter?
I know I should be using a Yeast Starter so that I can make sure I have enough, healthy yeast, but I've never managed to go around to it.
How would I start a yeast starter? How long before brewday ...
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Does suspended yeast contribute to high SG?
I've got a SMaSH beer (Baird Maris Otter and EKG) finishing in primary. It's been fermenting for just over a week. Starting Gravity was 1.046. I mashed at 154F for 60 minutes. Fermented with WY1335 ...
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Can I use wine yeast to ferment beer?
Can I use wine yeast to ferment a beer? What sort of problems might I encounter that are unique to wine yeast trying to ferment malt sugars? What sort of flavor differences might I encounter?
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How do new yeast strains happen?
Rogue and Papazian have their own yeast strains (PacMan and Cry Havoc, respectively). Do you know how they got there?
Lots of trial and error? Pitching multiple strains?
Let's say I pitch a bunch of ...
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Brewing with Saccharomyces boulardii
I have a friend who studies some molecular aspects of probiotic yeasts, some wild ones and also the widespread in medications Saccharomyces boulardii (found in Florastor®, Floratil®, and other ...
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Should you rehydrate dry yeast?
I've read conflicting opinions on whether or not to re-hydrate dried yeast. I've had successful fermentation with dried yeast in the past but have not tried re-hydrating. Has anyone had better/worse ...
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Baking yeast for brewing?
Has anyone ever used the ubiquitous Flesichmann's baking yeast for brewing? Is there a fermented beverage style for which it works particularly well?
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does starsan kill yeast
Is Starsan effective against yeast?
After resuming homebrewing again after a 2 year break, I started having pellicle appearing on my starters (after fermentation had completed), which has now spread ...
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No bubbles in the airlock - should I still bottle the brew?
I'm attempting my first brew using a kit with all the provided ingredients (it's a lager). My brew is still in the big tub and has been there for about 2 weeks now. Initial SG was 1.040 and it's now ...
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Is it necessary to aerate wort when pitching onto an existing yeast cake?
To my knowledge, aeration provides oxygen so that the yeast can reproduce before fermentation. If you're pitching onto an existing yeast cake, there should theoretically be enough yeast already to ...
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What is attentuation?
What is attentuation?
How does it effect beer flavor and quality?
How is is calculated and why do I need to know it?
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Proper Way to Store Yeast
What is the proper way and temperature to store yeast?
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Why is it bad to pitch too little yeast?
What are the effects of underpitching your beer?
We have an answer for over pitching, I think we need the complete set.
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Using Multiple Strains of Yeast in the Same Batch?
I've been thinking about this recently, so I figured I'd ask it here. Is there any reason you couldn't use two strains of yeast in the same batch of beer? For a particularly high gravity amber ale, ...
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What would cause yeast to fail to flocculate?
I am using WLP002 - English Ale Yeast - in my current batch, a Young's double chocolate clone. According to the manufacturer's product page, this yeast is highly flocculant.
The beer remained in the ...
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Smack Pack and Pitching Time
So I completed my first batch of homebrew this morning, but I forgot one potentially (okay, not potentially, definitely) important aspect of the whole process: the yeast. I didn't forget it, per se, ...
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Choosing a yeast for ginger beer
I'm doing some experiments with ginger beer (this is a alcoholic beer, not a soda). I'm use brown sugar as the sugar source for now, but may experiment with other sugars including malt as I go along.
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How do you pitch additional yeast for bottling?
This is a follow on to my other question about when you would need to pitch additional yeast for bottle conditioning.
Assuming you know that you need to pitch more yeast before bottling to ensure ...
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Is aeration necessary if you overpitch?
We all know that aeration is necessary for yeast growth. Does it facilitate more than that? If you massively overpitch, on a previous yeast-cake for example, do you need the same amount of dissolved ...
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Is it possible to bottle condition without sediment?
I've recently been reading the labels a bit more on one of my favourite beers and have discovered that the brewers bottle condition their Pale Ale. Yet it's sold with no signs of any flocculated ...
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Alternative/homemade yeast nutrient?
I forgot to add nutrient to my must when I put it in my carboy the other day (first time brewing mead). I fear I won't be able to get to my homebrew store before it's too late, so I'm wondering if I ...
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Long cooling before pitching
Summer brewing means warmer tap water, which means that my immersion chiller can only cool the wort to about 75 degrees. I typically cool the wort to 68 degrees before pitching. I have a ...
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Yeast for very high gravity (1.138) stout
I'm planning to brew a very high gravity stout. I'm expecting an OG between about 1.118 and 1.138 depending on how much my efficiency suffers. I've done this before with decent results, but I think I ...
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How many times can yeast be reused?
A good yeast sample can be retrieved, stored & reused regularly across brews. Is there a limit to the number of generations a sample can last?
I've heard that after so many generations a strain ...
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What effect do different types of yeast have when creating a recipe?
What happens when you use different types of yeast? Does it change the flavor? I'm not talking about mixing different types of yeast in the same recipe.
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How long can yeast be stored?
If I buy a tube of liquid yeast from my local homebrew store and throw it in the fridge, how long before it's no good? How 'bout dry yeast?
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What happens when you push a yeast near its alcohol tolerance?
I'm brewing with Wyeast's West Yorkshire Ale yeast, which has a documented alcohol tolerance of 9%.
I'd like to push that boundary by brewing an 8.5% ale and wonder what to expect. Common sense says ...
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At what point can a beer be called organic?
A lot of the homebrew I make is made with organic ingredients - organic grain and hops. However, I have never come across organic yeast (!?) or irish moss. Can I rightly call this beer organic, or ...
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Harvested Yeast - What are these layers and do I have too much?
I harvested yeast a few weeks back from my hefeweizen (Wyeast 3068) which I had open fermented. To harvest, I scrapped it right off the top, after ~36 hours of fermenting, with a sanitized spoon. I ...
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What exactly is yeast-bite?
So I cracked open a nearly year-old bottle of oatmeal porter last night and it tasted a bit "yeasty". In fact, much more yeasty than I remember from a few months ago. I was fairly careful in my ...