Rehydrating Dry Yeast?

And your post is indeed your experience and in a related manner your opinion.

I homebrew with US-05 a lot and to my palate this yeast strain is not too "estery" but needless to say that happens to be my opinion.

One thing I like about US-05 is that it can be used to brew many different beer styles. I reviewed my brewing log for 2015 and I 'discovered' that I used US-05 for 9 batches of beer:

• 4 batches of American style IPA
• 3 batches of Oatmeal Stout
• 1 batch of Wet Hopped Harvest Ale (base beer an APA)
• 1 batch of DIPA

IMO, US-05 performed very well in all of these batches and they were not "estery".

I would suggest US-05 to other homebrewers for the following beer styles:

• Cream Ale
• Brown Porter
• Oatmeal Stout
• American Amber Ale
• American Barleywine
• American Brown Ale
• American IPA
• American Pale Ale
• DIPA
• Russian Imperial Stout
• etc.

Cheers!

 

In all honesty, it's the flocculation (or lack thereof) that dissuades me from using US-05 more than anything else. It just seems to take forever, even if I cold-crash it. Do you notice the same thing?

 

I have never experienced what I would label as "poor flocculation issues" in any of the beers that I have brewed using US-05. I have always been pleased with the resulting beers.

Cheers!

 

I agree that US05/WLP001 does take a lot longer to floc compared to other strains. WLP013 attenuates similarly to US05, but much quicker. If you keep the temp down it only gives the beer a mild fruity flavor compared to Chico as far as my taste buds can tell. If there was a dry version of 013 I would probably use that exclusively in my brewing.

 

When my airlock gets a bubble every 15-20 seconds I put my fermenter where the temperature is 66-72 degrees. I will keep it there for three days and by that time fermentation is about complete. I then bring back to primary fermentation temperatures till the beer has been on the yeast for three weeks. Take care.

 

'Science' would tell you to split a single batch. Ferment one half with rehydrated yeast and the other with a dry pitch using 2 pkg from the same lot. Ferment both halves at identical temperature for the same duration, then compare.

Re-brewing (unless you're really, really good and have your entire process dialed) has the potential to introduce additional variables.

 

So for this beer you would want to pitch one rehydrated pack and then just sprinkle another pack on top? That should put you right at 270B.

 

Nothing particularly wrong with with what you did. You did use more water than is necessary, but I don't think that would impact your lag time.

Generally, I've always gone by what Fermentis suggests: rehydrate at a ratio of 10:1. That is, water at 10X the weight of the yeast being rehydrated. For an 11.5 gram sachet, you need 115 g of water (115 mL). That works out to 3.9 fl oz, or - just under 1/2 cup per pkg.

[edit] 100F is on the high side, but isn't hot enough to kill the yeast. Are you sure it was really a 36 hr lag and not just an issue with your bucket lid sealing? I've found that some lids w/o rubber o-rings tend to have trouble forming a gas-tight seal - so there's little to no activity in visible in the airlock, even though things are proceeding just fine.

 

Sprinkle the yeast in minimum 10 times its weight of sterile water or wort at 27°C ± 3°C (80°F ± 6°F). Leave to rest 15 to 30 minutes. Gently stir for 30 minutes, and pitch the resultant cream into the fermentation vessel.

http://www.fermentis.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/SFA_US05.pdf

Hopefully the water you used was dechlorinated and not distilled.

 

I've never used any different type of water for my brewing experiences other than Ozarka. When I have rehydrated my US-05, (which I've used in over 20 batches), it seems to be slightly delayed in "noticeable" fermentation. Any time that I've ever just sprinkled in the yeast, it seems to have had quicker results. However, all the beers have always turned out extremely identical regardless whether I hydrated or not. There may be much evidence as to if its "better" or not to hydrate, but seriously, at the end of the day, people will do what they want to do. Many home brewers have some very strong opinions, whether if it's backed up by scientifical evidence or not. This is starting to feel like a religion or politics topic.

 

Properly re-hydrating dry yeast will result in more viable yeast cells vs. just sprinkling the dry yeast on top of the wort.

Whether there is a 'requirement' to optimize the number of viable yeast cells from a packet of dry yeast is a matter of debate.

Cheers!

 

That's pretty much where I'm coming from on this topic, though I may not always be clear on that. For some reason, this is one of a handful of topics that always starts fires. I'll admit, I sometimes try to push buttons, if only for the entertainment value (this is the internet -- it's what we do!). I try to be liberal with the smilies, but that doesn't always help.

Ya think? As I've said numerous times, rehydrate or not - it's your choice. I don't, but I'm not going to tell you that rehydrating is wrong or will produce sub-par beers because, Dan Listermann's comment notwithstanding, that's never been shown to be true, despite the intuitive benefit of a higher cell count. That said, I do think that giving a new brewer one more step to worry about is wrong, particularly when that step is not likely to improve the result. Let him get the technique nailed down before introducing less consequential variables.

 

Hey @GreenKrusty101 - been meaning to post a follow-up to this discussion FYI. The 'butter-bomb' batch above? I recently 're-discovered' a keg of it that has been sitting in my fridge for ~ 7 months since the original tapping when I almost dumped it. The diacetyl is gone. Like, GONE gone. And the Pils is great, in spite of it's age.

Not that anyone really *wants* to wait 7 months for a pils to turn around, but... it can happen.

 

@DunkelFester - I didn't have to wait 7 months, I just gave the keg away to my brew buddy (who has a higher threshold for diaceytl) and 2 weeks later it was gone when I sampled the keg out of curiosity.

 

Something like 20% of the population is ‘blind’ to diacetyl. It appears that tour brew buddy is part of that 20%.

Cheers!

 

Where'd learn that one?

 

Dave, I learned that tidbit from a very wise person: Jeff (@hopfenunmaltz ):

“Take diacetyl as an example, 20 to 25% of the population are blind to that due to genetics. Just like some are blind to certain colors. I know one National judge that is blind to diacetyl, another is blind to DMS. That is why there are at least 2 per judging panel.”

I have a vague feeling that at one point I knew Jeff’s source for the above statement but unfortunately my memory is failing me right now.

Cheers!