Do You Pitch Dry Yeast Onto Foam Or Wort Surface?

[Barley Belly]

Just wondering if you pitch yeast onto the aerated foam or directly onto the wort surface?

I do K+K and let the wort aerate when filling with cold tap, which leaves a fair amount of foam.
Then I have been just pitching dry yeast onto foam.

I did this to a brew I put down 2 days ago and yesterday when I checked it to see if it had started there were no bubbles but the gravity had gone down, so I must have a leak somewhere.

BUT

There seamed to be partly rehydrated yeast clumps still in the foam????

Is this normal?

OR

Is there a better way?

 

[warra48]

The better way is to rehydrate your yeast first.
Sprinkle the yeast onto some pre-boiled and cooled (down to 30C or less) water. Leave it for 15 minutes, then give it a good stir. The yeast should start to froth up within about another 15 minutes. When it has, stir it again, then pitch it into your fermenter. As it has been rehydrated, it will make its way through any froth, and into your wort.

 

[Barley Belly]

The better way is to rehydrate your yeast first.

I did this with my third brew but had trouble with the yeast starting.

After advice from HBS and numerous people on this forum I decided dry pitching was better for me as supposed more problems can happen with rehydrating than dry.

I suppose it's an experience thing.
I know people rehydrate with no probs whatsoever.

Just wondering how the dry pitchers get it onto the wort through the foam.

 

[The Big Burper]

I did this with my third brew but had trouble with the yeast starting.

After advice from HBS and numerous people on this forum I decided dry pitching was better for me as supposed more problems can happen with rehydrating than dry.

I suppose it's an experience thing.
I know people rehydrate with no probs whatsoever.

Just wondering how the dry pitchers get it onto the wort through the foam.

I just use a big black nylon spoon with the slits in it, a draining type spoon. Push the yeast down with the back of the spoon and stir like you are stirrig paint. Do this for a good 3 minutes and your wort is aerated and the yeast is thoroughly incorporated.

cheers
Dave

 

[boingk]

If there's a stack of foam, just let it sit until its gone...with lid and airlock in place of course! You can use this time to get the wort to your optimum temperature using whatever method you generally use [I'm a fan of slipping a wet singlet over the fermenter]. When the foam is gone, sprinkle as per normal.

Having said that, I always rehydrate as it gives you a good indication as to the condition of the yeast, especially if you put a dab of extract into the glass with the water and yeast: if it foams up, good to go. If not wait for another half hour and if its still a no-go you need another pack of yeast. Saved my ass a few times, in which case I'll go to the "replaced with premium yeast" backup-jar and use a standard yeast on the brew to get me out of the pinch.

Cheers - boingk

 

[Sammus]

Yeah just chuck it on the foam. I can help a bit if you sprinkle it over the entire surface instead of a big clump.

When rehydrating the only time I've killed my yeast was when the water was over 40C. I was following this (http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter6-5.html) and he says 35-40C, so I thought yeah thats pretty general, a few over can't hurt, and I was impatient. Didnt work to well

Also, I have read people say the yeast foams up. I'm not saying it doesnt, but it never has for me, it more turns into a thick cream/soup (and will foam up if you add wort to make a starter - something only to worry about with liquids). If its dead it will just drop to the bottom and form a thick layer pretty quickly. This has happened to me before though and the yeast still kicked off OK, so its a bit hard to tell.*

That said, you dont need to rehydrate, it can improve the lag time a fair bit though (takes it from ~24hrs to ~12hrs in my experience).

*- IT does foam up if you proof the yeast (as boingk explains above) by adding a little malt extract. I also used to do this without any noticeable detrimental affect, but some of the dry yeast manufacturers recommend against it, something about the malt solution stressing the waking up yeast, which made me stop doing it.

 

[razz]

Evening finners. I pitch my dry yeast without rehydrating first, I don't bother with aerating the wort for dry yeast as the yeast has stored O2 from the drying process. If using liquid yeast it goes straight onto the foamy wort.

 

[Screwtop]

Just wondering if you pitch yeast onto the aerated foam or directly onto the wort surface?


There seamed to be partly rehydrated yeast clumps still in the foam????

Was it Ale yeast? If so who cares it's top fermenting anyway!

[

I did this with my third brew but had trouble with the yeast starting.

After advice from HBS and numerous people on this forum I decided dry pitching was better for me as supposed more problems can happen with rehydrating than dry.

I suppose it's an experience thing.

Yep an experience thing, over a number of different beers of differing wort compositions, my experience is that dried pitching works ok, rehydrated works better. Properly rehydrated yeast has a shorter lag time, good for lowering the risk of infection.

Why do yeast companies recommend rehydrating their dried yeast do you reckon? Would it be so you have a bad experience with the yeast and stop buying it? Yeast companies have their own recommended methods for their yeast strains. Follow their instructions, usually something along the lines of: pour the yeast onto cooled water that has been boiled, do not stir, cover and wait 15 min, now stir/aerate, cover again and wait another 15 min. It will have frothed up now, pour into your wort. Most start within 12 - 24 hrs.

Screwy

 

[white.grant]

When rehydrating the only time I've killed my yeast was when the water was over 40C. I was following this (http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter6-5.html) and he says 35-40C, so I thought yeah thats pretty general, a few over can't hurt, and I was impatient. Didnt work to well

Yeah thats pretty warm for a yeast, I go about half that around 22-25C.

I hadn't actually paid much attention to that part of the Palmer book but there must be a reason for that discrepancy, he's generally pretty reliable I find.

grant

 

[Sammus]

I just did a bit of further reading and found out here that in general and ale yeasts optimum propagation temp is 20-40C and 20-27C for lagers. Low 20's is a pretty good all round choice then

Currently I do my ale yeasts in the low 30s with no detrimental effect

 

[mikelinz]

I used to sprinkle on top then use a pre sterilised whisk to get it mixed into the wort and break up any lumps, which also provided some aeration.

rgds mike