Never used liquid yeast

Josh Hughes

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I have always used dry yeast. There are SO many liquid yeasts out there that I see recommended for recipes that I’ve brewed and recommended for styles I brew. I have a few reasons I have always used dry; I haven’t been brewing long, easy to just sprinkle on, and i only make small batches. My question is do I save what’s left in the packet in a jar like I would slurry from my dry yeast? Can I pitch the pack without a starter since I do small batches? I have used s04 for every English, Irish, and Scottish brew but I see many different liquid yeasts for those styles and I’m curious.
Thanks in advance
 
I've never tried to save one but I would say if you are doing that just put it in a mason jar in the fridge.
 
Do you mean leftover dry yeast in the original package? If so, just seal it well, put it in a zip lock bag and in the fridge. If you mean harvesting post brewing, yes I do it all the time.
 
3 years into this rabbit hole and I have just now started doing liquid. In a sense Josh, any slurry you use is "liquid" so the treatment I imagine ,,..stress imagine...can be treated somewhat the same. My major concern with yeast is to watch the sanitation of whatever you are letting touch the yeast....Star San the heck out of the bag...boil your jar and lid....smarter brewers can weigh in on building a larger than you need starter and pitching what you need and storing the rest which is most likely the best route.

You brew pretty regularly as I recall doing small batches so that may be the ticket!
 
Do you mean leftover dry yeast in the original package? If so, just seal it well, put it in a zip lock bag and in the fridge. If you mean harvesting post brewing, yes I do it all the time.
I do all of that already. I mean buying a liquid yeast to use. I make small batches and wouldn’t need a full pack
 
3 years into this rabbit hole and I have just now started doing liquid. In a sense Josh, any slurry you use is "liquid" so the treatment I imagine ,,..stress imagine...can be treated somewhat the same. My major concern with yeast is to watch the sanitation of whatever you are letting touch the yeast....Star San the heck out of the bag...boil your jar and lid....smarter brewers can weigh in on building a larger than you need starter and pitching what you need and storing the rest which is most likely the best route.

You brew pretty regularly as I recall doing small batches so that may be the ticket!
I try to weekly if I can. I thought about grabbing a pack and pitching the whole thing and then saving the slurry.
 
Make a 1-1/2 gal Starter. Put it in sterilized Mason jars & keep it in your fridge. Use it in your next beers. I have some that is over acyear old. Works great if you use the same yeast for most of your brewing.
 
I mostly use liquid yeast, but dry yeast is still a choice for certain recipes.
One method is to overpitch the batch by using the whole package. Or, just discard the extra. The packages cost $8 around here.
You don't need a starter, just like you don't need a starter for dry yeast. But if you need more yeast than is in the package, a starter can make more and save your day.
Just like saving re-hydrated dry yeast slurry, liquid yeast can be saved in the fridge. Sanitation is important there.
 
Check the yeast pitch calculator. You'll be surprised how many cells you've been getting in your dry yeast packets. Liquid yeast packets by a number of producers seem better targeted to 2-3 gallon recipes than the 5 gallons they claim. Others pack plenty of yeast though.
 
When I get a new liquid strain in I make a 2.5lt starter once ferment is done I pinch 500ml into cleaned sanitized jar and pitch the rest into beer I desire to brew.
In your case you could scale it down (not sure if you do starters).

You could let's say make a 1.5 it starter let it do it's thing pinch two jars worth and pitch what's left into your current batch then you've got two brews worth of yeast up your sleeve then on last jar either pitch it and be done with it or repeat process.
Or keep a jar at the ready and keep slurry from first batch n use that till you're not game then revitalise saved jar and you can get another brew or three out.
 
You will have to change when going from dry to liquid yeast. The two biggest reasons are yeast count and wort aeration. Dry yeast has a higher yeast count and the yeast degrades much slower due to dehydration putting the yeast in a dormant state. Liquid yeast degrades pretty quickly, especially with higher temperatures. I've been burnt by low counts on liquid yeast. The way to avoid that is to build a starter for each beer. Yeast counts on liquid rarely are what they claim. Wyeast smack packs claim 100 billion, but they lose cells from the beginning and after a couple months your lucky if you have 50 billion left. Dry yeast is much more stabile and typical 11 gram pack has @ 200 billion.

Liquid yeast lacks the lipids for reproduction, so oxygen levels in wort are very important. The yeast uses the oxygen to synthesize the lipids. Dry yeast manufactures treat the yeast in such a way that the yeast has enough lipids to reproduce at least 4 times, plus they have sterol reserves. Liquid doesn't have either and if you harvest dry yeast, it's in the same boat.

I tell new brewers to start with dry yeast, after a while you can try your hand at liquid. It's best to make a starter and aerate the wort with all forms of liquid yeast, including dry yeast that has been harvested or built up with a starter. Aeration with pure oxygen and a diffusion stone works best.
 
Over time my view toward dry vs. liquid yeast has changed. I was a dedicated liquid user and will still use it when necessary. For example, there is no dried Kolsch yeast. I oxygenate when using liquid yeast, have even built an inline oxygenation attachment for my kettle and have figured out how to use a low flow to keep my oxygen in solution, not bubbled off into the air.

Then I had a conversation with one of the Big Names in homebrew about dry yeast. It's processed so the cells are good to go when they rehydrate. There's some loss due to osmotic pressure but by and large, they're ready to perform. They're also about 30% of the price of liquid on a per-cell basis, comparing to Wyeast or White Labs. So, where it works, I can get three packets of dry yeast for the price of one packet of liquid.

The last thing I'll say is from the perspective of a quality specialist: If you can eliminate a step, you eliminate an opportunity for error. Using dry yeast eliminates the oxygenation step completely so everything that could potentially go wrong with it can't. So now, when possible, I use dry yeast. It makes things easier and produces great results.
 
A year or more ago I started using liquid yeast here and there.
My thinking was that liquid yeast is better, and using it would make me a better brewer, and make my beer better too.
Having learned more about yeast, I went back to using dry yeast almost exclusively for all of the reasons stated above.
I don't want to discourage you from using it, just sharing my thoughts.

@Nosybear you have won some awards for your beer, do you recall if your award winning brews were made with dry or liquid?
 
Mostly liquid. I made the switch to dry this year and haven't had much of a chance to enter the ones made with dry yeast into competitions. I've made lots of process changes this year, primarily kegging. My beers haven't suffered from switching to dry yeast. My key take-away from all this is I used to believe dried yeast to be an inferior product. Turns out that isn't the case so now I'll use it when I can due to cost, elimination of making a starter and of oxygenation.
 
@Nosybear you have won some awards for your beer, do you recall if your award winning brews were made with dry or liquid?
Not bragging, but I won in excess of 130 medals over the years, some BOS. Up until this year I only won one with dry yeast. It was a pale ale brewed with K97 dry kolsch yeast, it was good, but I went back to liquid right away. It was only intended to be an experiment.

This year was different. As soon as this pandemic hit, I was forced to order all my yeast online. So I learned to brew with dry yeast almost exclusively. It took a while to get adjusted to it and I focused on SO4 and 34/70. October was when the first competition was held since this crap started. I entered 4 beers. An American Stout brewed as a lager with liquid yeast (WLP9833) and a German Pilsner, an American Lager and a Helles. All three beers were brewed with dry lager yeast 34/70. The American Lager got a gold, the Helles got silver to my American lager and the Pilsner got a gold, the Stout bombed (I thought it was good, but I guess it wasn't). I won overall in points and picked up the Great Pumpkin award. (Hoppy Halloween, Fargo North Dakota). It wasn't the biggest comp, but it change my view of dry yeast. I still like 2124 liquid for German beers better, but 34/70 is still pretty good and is the best yeast I have found to date for an American Lager.
 
I also only use dry yeast and repitched slurry. This is mostly due to small batches, small storage footprint, and longevity after opening the package. From what I've read, the variety and quality of dry yeast is improving each year. If I were to scale up to larger batches and start using liquid yeast, I would probably use Imperial though. My favorite brewing podcast talks about them a lot and even had a rep from the company on. They ship more cells per pack so that starters are unnecessary, and they say you can use a partial amount of the yeast, and save the rest for later batches back in the fridge, as long as you use the opened yeast within a week.

But I doubt I will be moving away from dry yeast very soon :)
 
My favorite brewing podcast talks about them a lot and even had a rep from the company on.

Hmmm...I guessing Brulosophy ? I have a jar of 2nd generation Imperial Kveiking A44 that got dumped into the extract batch I brewed yesterday...pitched at about 5 pm yesterday and we were glucking away with a krausen starting to form at 6AM this morning.
 
Hmmm...I guessing Brulosophy ? I have a jar of 2nd generation Imperial Kveiking A44 that got dumped into the extract batch I brewed yesterday...pitched at about 5 pm yesterday and we were glucking away with a krausen starting to form at 6AM this morning.
Homebrew happy hour
 
We have Inland Island here as well. They claim 200 billion cells in a vial. I've used them a time or two to good effect.
 
I haven't used liquid yeast in over a year. I been using mainly Lallemand yeasts.
 

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