Is dry yeast really a step down from liquid yeast?

I last cultured up a bottle in January so that was probably the last of the good stuff. Sucks.

 

Do you have a local brewery you can get yeast from? I know I'm filling containers of yeast for people pretty regularly. We have strict yeast handling guidelines, so our customers generally trust us to give them quality yeast.

 

No, although there are a couple of dry (and liquid) ones I avoid.

A good dry yeast can be especially useful for lagers where you can easily pitch multiple sachets on brew day and not have to bother cold crashing, decanting, or stepping up a starter.

 

I like US-05 but I rarely if ever brew with chico yeast these days. I use English ale yeasts most often (1028/WLP013 is my favorite) followed by various Belgian yeasts, and personally I have not found dry yeasts in these varieties that suit my tastes. People will disagree but personally I find S-04 unpalatable, for me it has always yielded an insipid beer with a raw bread dough ester that I find off putting. I've never been super impressed with Nottingham either, but that's just me, some people swear by it.

 

honestly the whole notion of this thread about dry yeast being a step down from liquid is almost laughable, at least to me. Sure, people may have preferences, old habits, things used to be a certain way in the past, cost considerations, ease of use for a particular application, etc etc with 253 different caveats, but categorically... I don't see it happening, and I don't think anyone has tried to argue it. There is a wider array of available yeasts in liquid, that is not debatable, so that's an important caveat. Some yeasts don't come dry. But 1056 or US-05 or S-04 or WLP001 or nottingham or ... the list goes on, and I don't think there's anything generically categorically better about one over the other.

 

Yeah I found doing the starter for my lager (that's now lagering) was a royal pain in the butt and took six days. Truthfully, I'm not that fond of making starters and would probably defer to dry yeast whenever I could be reasonably certain of an equivalent outcome. What specific yeast was that?

 

I ran across this today and thought it would play here well. It is only a wheat yeast experiment. But it shows how different types as well as strains can affect the beer.
http://eurekabrewing.wordpress.com/experimental/wheat-yeasts/

 

Have you had success using dry yeast for lagers? If so, can you give some details: which yeast, what styles, pitch rates?

 

Have had good success with Mangrove Jack's Bohemian Lager (M-84) and Fermentis W34/70. Granted, my lager batches I can count on one hand, but these two seemed to perform well for a Bopils and German Pils anyway. I pitched 2 per 5 gal batch. Going to try the Danish Lager (liquid) soon, but at this point all I can compare the dry to are WY 2124, 2206, and 2007. Believe it or not, the 2007 (Bud) was my favorite for the liquids...it stayed out of the way and let the malt and hops shine. I did not care for the 2206 (Bavarian lager), but that may be due to using it for a Schwartzbier. Cheers

http://www.williamsbrewing.com/SAFLAGER-W3470-LAGER-YEAST-P2222.aspx

http://www.williamsbrewing.com/MANGROVE-JACKS-M84-BOHEMIAN-LAGER-P3381.aspx

 

I've used the W-34/70 yeast with good success. I used the S-23 and it was terrible. The beer came out extremely fruity. I'll never use it again.