Hydrate Yeast

You really want to know?
There are a few good threads on this forum, so do search for them.

I'll cut to the chase and state that properly rehydrated dry yeast is absolutely and irrefutably a good idea. It is very easy to do, any moron can do it. It results in substantially more viable cells for fermentation. A healthy colony of fermenters is one of the most important things a brewer can do to improve or maintain good results. Pitching dry saves about 5 minutes, maybe less.

A few homebrewers around here are known to pitch dry yeast directly, but those people who shall remain nameless are radical fools and probably hate America and babies.

Cheers.

 

The thing to keep in mind is that the key word in this reply is "properly". We've all heard too many stories of people dumping dry yeast into hot water and then wondering why they have zero fermentation activity.

 

I personally re-hydrate dry yeast and I use US-05 a lot. I can't specifically comment on how the beer turns out vs. just dry pitching since I have never just tossed the dry yeast into the wort.

Whether to re-hydrate dry yeast or not is a personal choice. The beauty of homebrewing is that we can to choose which way we want to brew.

Cheers!

 

Almost everything in brewing is a personal choice. That doesn't mean some methods aren't better than others.

I'd say the beauty is that we can choose to use best practices and make better beer.

I'm not even talking about hydrating vs. not rehydrating. I just object to the idea that everything is equally valid.

 

Old, extremely flammable topic. Done properly, it won't hurt. People swear that it makes superior beer with absolutely no evidence to back up that claim. Others say you won't taste any difference if you pitch it dry, also with no evidence to back it up. I'm somewhere in the middle - I follow the package directions, don't sweat it, and grin when people who have never tasted my beer tell me it's less than it could be.

 

I hydrate yeast now, but did not back when I first started brewing. I can't say I have specifics on how this alone may have improved my beers, but I am convinced by what I have read regarding having more and healthier yeast going to work in the bucket by doing this quick and easy process.

My brewing has improved process-wise in so many other ways, though, that like I said, I can't credit it with a specific improvement in the final product.

 

Woo-Hoo! A double reply.

Nothing gets 'better' than that!?!

Cheers!

 

Take a look at this....http://brulosophy.com/2014/09/15/sprinkled-vs-rehydrated-dry-yeast-exbeeriment-results/.....then you can decide for yourself.
Keep on brewing!!!

 

Two statements. Two rebuttals. I "apologize" if that "confused" you.

"Cheers!"

 

No confusion. I am enjoying the moment!

Cheers!

 

Broken link. But that's the brewing experiment site with the crack panel of tasters that couldn't tell the difference between two beers that finished at 1.005 and 1.014.

 

Maybe you will get a double rebuttal too!?!

Cheers!

 

Maybe you are drunk.

 

Nope, not that there is anything wrong with that.

Cheers!

 

You get the idea, type it in your browser. It's different tasters just about every time. Why the hate? You gotta keep an open mind. I'm not saying it's a good idea to dump in dry yeast without re-hydrating, just sometimes we assume the results will be a certain way. Blind tasting can open your eyes in many cases.

 

So how do you know which results to believe?

I don't hate them. But I don't trust them.

 

It's not a matter of trust, they are not the National Science Foundation for Chrissakes!! They never claim to be the last word on anything. They are however making a lot of people think twice about blindly believing some blowhard that says things are a certain way because they say so!!

 

Sorry, but if the reported results of some of their experiments don't pass the stink test, I'm not going to pay very much attention to the others. What should I do? Discount the results that seem impossible, but then believe the results that seem plausible, even though a different result would also be plausible?

But I don't need any of their results to make me think twice about believing blowhards. I would hope people would trust valid science, their own experience based perceptions, and then conventional wisdom (possibly relayed by blowhards), in that order of preference.

 

I've only brewed two batches and pitched it dry both times. I want to try either re-hydrated dry or liquid on my next batch. But to stick to this thread topic I'll leave the questions about liquid yeast for another time. I was all set to re-hydrate for my second batch and when I read about it as I was getting ready to do it the sources I was reading said to (i) not use distilled water and (ii) not to use water that has been softened. Given that those were the only two kinds of water I had available right then I punted and pitched it dry.

So... First, are those two constraints true? Second, could I use "spring water" from a bottle or "Purified water" from a bottle (both are available at my grocery store)?