I recently discovered Lallemand's Philly Sour strain. I used some portion of the packet in my latest saison. I measured the dry particles by tapping them out into a small plastic container on a digital scale. That container was Starsan'd and the dry meeting the wet sanitizer screwed with the exactness of my measurements. In the future, what should I do instead to get exact measurements of dry yeast in a clean manner? Measure with an un-StarSan'd container then put into a StarSan'd container then pour into the carboy/wort?
Well, once you measure in the unsanitized container, you're not going to be able to sanitize the yeast by transferring it to a sanitized container. But, why do you need exact measurements of yeast weight? Personally, I eyeball it if I intend to use something other than an even number of packs. Or, if you need an exact amount, and you're not worried about saving the unused part of the pack, you could pour into a tared container until "full pack net weight minus intended pitch weight" is reached. What's left in the pack would be your pitch.
I take your post to mean you sanitized the container before putting it on the scale and then added the yeast. Is that how you did it? If yes, and you tared the scale with the plastic container (including any Starsan that was left in it) and then added the yeast, whatever the scale measured should be the amount of yeast tapped into the container.
That is what I mean. I didn't trust it because it was constantly fluctuating, perhaps this is a scale problem rather than a wet & dry problem.
I agree with Vikeman's suggestion above. You could also do the reverse, cut the corner off the pack, put the pack on the scale, tare it, then pour a bit, put it back on the scale, etc. The negative number indicated when the packet is on the scale will represent the amount poured so far. It is obviously a bit painstaking to do it this way, I probably wouldn't bother, but if I were going to try to measure this is probably what I would do. Am I understanding correctly though that the yeast was poured into wet StarSan solution? The yeast might be able to survive that, but it doesn't seem ideal to me. I'd rinse with sterilized (that is, boiled and cooled down) water before adding the yeast in the future.
The other problem is the yeast particles would adhere to the container. Obvious solution: pour as much as I can, then put it back on the scale to see what's left. But it would then read zero even though many particles remained in the container. I was told that small amounts of Philly Sour could get my saison to tart town. They were right, but I wanted to keep log of exact amounts to make adjustments to future batches.
Supposedly you can’t really blend Philly sour with other yeasts and expect much from it. It gets out competed really easily. Haven’t tried it myself but it’s what I’ve read. And yes just weigh the pack, pour some into the FV, weigh again, until you hit the desired amount. No reason to sanitize a container.
After 23 days in fermentation and 18 days after bottling, the saison has tartness. The main strain (rhymes) was OYL-042.
By the way I haven't heard of this approach being used with Philly Sour but it's exactly what people do with Lallemand's Sourvisiae strain (which is a GMO strain of clean yeast that has been modified with CRISPR so that it makes lots of lactic acid). I think Sourvisiae sounds really interesting and it's too bad that (as far as I know) it is not being retailed in homebrew quantities, although you can get it in small enough packages that a homebrew club or something could easily get some for interested members. https://suigenerisbrewing.com/index.php/2021/02/19/diving-deep-in-to-sourvisiae/
Hard to describe but I'll try to give you some valuable info. This was my third pitch and the prior two beers did not have tartness, IMO (nor did they have Philly Sour, to be clear). Those beers were 90% Pilsner with a bit of white wheat and sucrose, pH ~5.4, cooked just under 150°F and fermented at 70°F to 85°F. Logsdon's Oak Aged Bretta is my ideal, the beer with Philly Sour is close to that tartness but still below it. I intended to put 0.5g/gallon but don't know if I achieved that.
Sanitize the container and something to hang it on (baby bottle drying rack), hang the container from said sanitized thing, allow to dry completely, then measure out the yeast. Bacteria won't get into the upside down container so it remains sanitized. This can be done with Starsan or boiling water. If you are adding at the beginning of fermentation alongside the main strain, sanitize the container, measure out the dry yeast, add some of the wort to the container, swirl to rehydrate, add the contents to the main batch.
