Smack Pack Question

Not sure I'm following... are you saying Wyeast says that the nutrients in the smack pack are all you need for fermentation? If so, I don't recall ever reading or hearing that.

As an aside... I once planned to collect enough unbroken inner pouches to get a good hydrometer reading, to estimate the amount of sugar (which is one of the "nutrients" Wyeast is talking about when they describe the smack pack). But before I had collected enough, a fair number of them had yucky stuff growing inside of them. Maybe the inner pouches are not "bug impermeable" when outside the main pouch. But for me it was one more reason to not break them.

Edit: Wyeast won't say, but I would be willing to bet that a high 90s percentage of the nutrients in the smack pack inner pouch are sugar.

 

Yes, that is what I'm saying. That is what Wyeast says. It is also what Palmer says in How to Brew.

Sure, the pack contains sugar. It also contains nutrients. The sugar/nutrient pack may be permeable, but the external pack isn't.

 

Interesting. Either Palmer must know what's inside, or he's guessing. Do you have a link to the Wyeast source?

Edit: I can't find this claim in How to Brew (online version). Is it in the current print version?

 

I have no links. The Wyeast claim was from a conversation with a Wyeast employee. The Palmer claim was read online at HTB.

 

Okay. Can't find it personally.

 

It's what prompted me to contact Wyeast. This was several years ago.

 

It's interesting that Wyeast makes a Yeast Nutrient Blend, and recommends 1/2 tsp per 5 gallons of wort. Never mind the possible silliness of a one-size-fits-all-worts recommendation, but at least as a rough order of magnitude, they seem to think we need 1/2 tsp per 5 gallons. I'm not so sure you could dissolve 1/2 tsp of that blend into a liquid with the volume of a smack pack inner pouch. I really hate yeast manufacturer mysteries.

 

I don't think it's a mystery anyone needs to worry about. Have you never made a beer without nutrient? I have many times. They turn out fine. I do use Wyeast powder nutrient for repitches, dry yeast and liquid yeast that isn't Wyeast. Occasionally, I forget to add it. It doesn't seem to matter. It also doesn't matter if you add twice as much as they suggest.

 

I have, when I first started brewing. When I started using nutrients, I seemed to get faster and more complete attenuation than before. I never A/B'd it, but that was the distinct impression. The main reason I started using it was because I had been told by several of the more experienced brewers I respected that the one really important thing completely or almost completely missing from beer wort that the yeast need is Zinc.

My beers also got better around that time, though yeast nutrient was not the only change I was making.

 

Is this yeast nutrient a commercially available thing you use to make a yeast starter? Or is it something you add to the wort when you pitch?

 

I think I found the answer to the question. And what @Brew_Betty was referring to about the nutrients in the smack pack. I guess a follow up question would be, if one was not using wyeast, maybe some dry yeast lets say. And I was going to make a yeast starter for a 1.05x OG amber ale. Should I use yeast nutrient with the light malt extract as a starter? Just yeast nutrient as a starter? Or do you think it would be more beneficial to toss in wort with yeast? Or am I over thinking and it doesn't matter?

 

Yes, it's commercially available. I use the Wyeast Nutrient Blend. There's also something from White Labs, but I'm not too familiar with that.

That section says that the smack pack contains zinc and other nutrients. But nothing about how much and whether that's enough for fermentation.

Yeast nutrient is not a starter. Starters increase the cell count. I add yeast nutrient in the boil.
With dry yeast, it's arguably better to not make starters at all, but rather to pitch multiple packs if needed for cell count. But I will say this. If I had a pack a of dry yeast, needed more cells, and had time to make a starter (and not time to order/receive more yeast), I'd make a starter. There's nothing about the dry yeast production process that makes the yeast only suitable for one whack at propagation. The "don't make starters with dry yeast" advice stems from the fact that the 11g packs have a lot more cells than liquid yeast packs, and that the manufacturers claim they left the yeast in a "ready to go" condition that making a starter would undo. But starter or no starter, I would still add nutrients with dry yeast.

 

As always, thanks for your insight @VikeMan . I don't want to hijack a thread, but I was going to make an amber from extract and I was debating using some wyeast, or dry yeast. And this gave me some good info for how to proceed for either direction I take.