Getting rid of that "homebrew taste"

[Bribie G]

Unlike the USA where companies such as Briess make dried malt extract specifically for the big extract home brew market that exists in the US, Australian made dried malt extract is made for the confectionery and baking industry. I'd guess that a single night shift run of Maltesers or Arnotts Tiny Teddies would use more LDME than sold in all the home brew shops in Australia in a year. They wouldn't give a F about whether it's suitable for home brew. I found in my KnK days that light dried often chucked a horrible chill haze.

If using liquid I'd go for dedicated home brew liquid malt extract such as Coopers or Morgans produced out of their own mash tuns. Problem is that they could have been on the shelves of the LHBS for a year.

 

[manticle]

You can buy briess and weyerman extract here. I'd be going for that. Briess do dried and liquid I believe - Weyerman do liquid. Expensive but still cheaper than buying beer.

 

[MHB]

jkhlt1210
Hard question to answer with an either or
Over the last couple of years there has been a huge increase in both the range and quality of extract (both LME and DME) and sadly the range of quality to.
Add Coopers, Black Rock and Muntons to the Weyermann and Briess mentioned above, all are produced by companies whose main focus is on brewing or brewing ingredients, they all have excellent products and all are reasonably available in Australia. They all have characteristic flavours and you will have to do a bit of experimenting to find which suits your taste best.
Nabisco produce confectionary/baking LME in Australia, it may be good for making bickeys but it really isn't up to snuff for brewing; and I got some samples of a Chinese DME that still makes me shudder when I think it may be going into beer.

Given that it is fresh and well looked after I think you can get a better flavour out of LME, I suspect when they take out that extra 16-18% moisture to make LME into DME they take out some more of the aromatic fractions with the water, it might be subtle, but if pressed I would say LME is to be preferred over DME, just.
Down side being it stales and darkens faster, DME stores better so its going to come down to how good your supply is and how much you want to buy and your taste - as always with brewing, your brewing for you not me so your taste will be the final arbiter.
Mark

 

[jkhlt1210]

G'day Mark
Thankyou very much for your reply much appreciated. I have read your posts and you really know your stuff. Thanks to everyone else also.

 

[jkhlt1210]

G'day Mark another question not on topic but I'm doing a hop hog extract brew on the weekend off this forum. Just wondering from what you said on under pitching it's a volume of 21 litres so should I pitch two packets of US-05??

 

[MHB]

From the calculation above, using an OG of 1.060 and a mid range pitch 0.7Mc/ml and your volume of 21L or 21,000 mL 16.25oP X 21,000 X 700,000 = 238875000000 cells at 6x10^9 comes to dam near 40g so the best answer is closer to 4 packets, but I know that’s going to stretch the friendship 3 would be better than 2 would beat the hell out of 1.
Mark

 

[verysupple]

From the calculation above, using an OG of 1.060 and a mid range pitch 0.7Mc/ml and your volume of 21L or 21,000 mL 16.25oP X 21,000 X 700,000 = 238875000000 cells at 6x10^9 comes to dam near 40g so the best answer is closer to 4 packets, but I know that’s going to stretch the friendship 3 would be better than 2 would beat the hell out of 1.
Mark

6 billion cells/g is the minimum for US-05. Quite a few well respected brewers and brewing scientists have counted the number to be closer to 20 billion/g. The viability won't be 100% so an estimate might be ~15 billion/g for reasonably handled packages. So a pitching rate of 0.7Mc/mL for 21 L @ 1.060 (14.7 P, not 16.25 P btw) needs ~216 billion cells. At 15 billion cells/g you would need 14.4 g or 1.25 packets. You could get away with 1 packet if you rehydrate it properly, but I'd go with 1.25 - 2 packets. There's no harm in pitching a bit more.

EDIT: BTW 15 billion/g is a conservative estimate given that when refrigerated dry yeast will lose ~4% viability per year.

 

[jkhlt1210]

From the calculation above, using an OG of 1.060 and a mid range pitch 0.7Mc/ml and your volume of 21L or 21,000 mL 16.25oP X 21,000 X 700,000 = 238875000000 cells at 6x10^9 comes to dam near 40g so the best answer is closer to 4 packets, but I know that’s going to stretch the friendship 3 would be better than 2 would beat the hell out of 1.
Mark

Ok cool thanks again Mark for your expert advice. I will definitely make sure I don't under pitch anymore.

 

[MHB]

6 billion cells/g is the minimum for US-05. Quite a few well respected brewers and brewing scientists have counted the number to be closer to 20 billion/g. The viability won't be 100% so an estimate might be ~15 billion/g for reasonably handled packages. So a pitching rate of 0.7Mc/mL for 21 L @ 1.060 (14.7 P, not 16.25 P btw) needs ~216 billion cells. At 15 billion cells/g you would need 14.4 g or 1.25 packets. You could get away with 1 packet if you rehydrate it properly, but I'd go with 1.25 - 2 packets. There's no harm in pitching a bit more.

EDIT: BTW 15 billion/g is a conservative estimate given that when refrigerated dry yeast will lose ~4% viability per year.

Yes you are right it’s closer to 14.7oP than 16.25 oP, I fat fingered the calculator sorry.
I’m not going to agree entirely with the rest of what is posted
First up that 20Bc/g, well that’s a number I have seen Jamil Zainasheff bandy around, I haven’t really seen it from anyone else, Jamil might be a respected brewer but he doesn’t I believe claim to be a brewing scientist. If you can find any other references I would like to see them.
I agree that the fatality rate for well stored (refrigerated) dry yeast is around 4%/year, 20% fatality at 20oC is the other number widely used, if at the end of 2 years (the best before date on Saf yeast) there are at least 6X10^9 viable cells per gram, at 20% loss per year there would have needed to be 9.375x10^9 c/g when it left the factory. Less than half the reported 2X10^10 c/g now even if Saf are giving them self a bit of a cushion I would doubt it would be over 100%, by some reports even Jamil has said he didn’t know if they were alive or dead cells he was counting. Mind you if about half the cells die during drying and Saf have included a bit of a margin then Jamil may in fact have seen his 20 billion.
So if you are absolutely certain that your yeast has been looked after perfectly through its entire life, you might be comfortable using a cell count a bit higher than 6X10^9, but I think 15B/g far from being conservative, is very ambitious.
Mark

 

[verysupple]

Yes you are right it’s closer to 14.7oP than 16.25 oP, I fat fingered the calculator sorry.
I’m not going to agree entirely with the rest of what is posted
First up that 20Bc/g, well that’s a number I have seen Jamil Zainasheff bandy around, I haven’t really seen it from anyone else, Jamil might be a respected brewer but he doesn’t I believe claim to be a brewing scientist. If you can find any other references I would like to see them.
I agree that the fatality rate for well stored (refrigerated) dry yeast is around 4%/year, 20% fatality at 20oC is the other number widely used, if at the end of 2 years (the best before date on Saf yeast) there are at least 6X10^9 viable cells per gram, at 20% loss per year there would have needed to be 9.375x10^9 c/g when it left the factory. Less than half the reported 2X10^10 c/g now even if Saf are giving them self a bit of a cushion I would doubt it would be over 100%, by some reports even Jamil has said he didn’t know if they were alive or dead cells he was counting. Mind you if about half the cells die during drying and Saf have included a bit of a margin then Jamil may in fact have seen his 20 billion.
So if you are absolutely certain that your yeast has been looked after perfectly through its entire life, you might be comfortable using a cell count a bit higher than 6X10^9, but I think 15B/g far from being conservative, is very ambitious.
Mark

Jamil is probably the most quoted on this, but I really only believed it when I read it from Calyton Cone, who I doubt many people would be willing to disagree with on anything yeast related (http://koehlerbeer.wordpress.com/2008/06/07/rehydrating-dry-yeast-with-dr-clayton-cone/ it's in the 5th last paragraph). I trust that when he reported these numbers he used a robust method for determining viability (note that he specifically writes "20 billion live yeast cells"). Also, I've done the cell count myself. I used methylene blue staining to determine viability, however it is well documented that this method if very unreliable for viabilities below 90 %, so I'm not going to say anything about viability. I will repeat the viability measurements some time in the future using the alkaline methylene blue method which is quite accurate even at very low viabilities.

I can only assume that the minimum 6 billion c/g is a conservative number based on if the yeast was mishandled and stored/transported at temps higher than 20 C, which is not out of the question when cheap shipping is used.

There is, of course, another approach. I pitch based on the weight of dried yeast rather than actual cell counts (I can't be bothered doing a cell count for every batch). Fermentis recommend 0.5 - 0.8 g/L for US-05, so I simply use 0.5 g/L for lower gravity brews and scale with gravity. Incidentally, for the 20 L brew from above, at the high end of 0.8 g/L you need 16 g or 1.4 packets - even Fermentis don't recommed 3 - 4 packets.

In the end, it's the result that counts, not how many viable cells you pitched. You just need to record what you did so when it turns out great you can do it again.

As a side note, if I had to pitch 3 packets of dry yeast I'd actually buy liquid and make a starter because it'd be cheaper and I don't mind spending the effort. But that's just me.

 

[MHB]

Fair enough cant really argue with Dr Cone, It is unfortunately extremely difficult to get firm consistent numbers for dry yeast.
In the Saf US-05 speck sheet attached there appear to be three quite different statements on the amount of yeast you should use, but the one I find most telling is the last one down the bottom with the other microbial information "*when dry yeast is pitched at 100 g/hl i.e. > 6 x 106 viable cells / ml" so at 1g/l we should be getting more than 6 million cells / mL (we don't know how much more), but based on the pitch calculation used above we want 0.7 X10^6 * 14.7 = 10.3X10^6, getting close to 1.5g/L. quite at odds with the pitch rate recommended earlier on the same page.

It wasn't my intention to take this thread off into a detailed discussion on pitching rates, more to emphasise how important it is to use an appropriate amount of healthy yeast to insure good quick clean fermentation as one of the keys to making good beer
Mark

View attachment SafaleUS05.pdf

 

[Batz]

As a side note, if I had to pitch 3 packets of dry yeast I'd actually buy liquid and make a starter because it'd be cheaper and I don't mind spending the effort. But that's just me.

There's a lot of good info in this thread, but verysupple has hit in on the head as far as this yeast question goes.

 

[verysupple]

I didn't intend to get this far OT either, so this'll be my last post on yeast cell count rates.

..."*when dry yeast is pitched at 100 g/hl i.e. > 6 x 106 viable cells / ml" so at 1g/l we should be getting more than 6 million cells / mL (we don't know how much more),...

Yeah, I noticed that too. But that statement actually agrees with the info higher up on the page. Both statments say that there are greater than 6 x 109 cells/g. So at least they're consistent in that respect. Although it would be nice if they gave a narrower range, with some qualifyers to cover themselves legally. e.g. "If handled appropriately (including reydration practices) each gram of dried yeast will contain x ± y viable cells."

It wasn't my intention to take this thread off into a detailed discussion on pitching rates, more to emphasise how important it is to use an appropriate amount of healthy yeast to insure good quick clean fermentation as one of the keys to making good beer
Mark

Now that IS something we can agree on.

 

[Forever Wort]

Briess liquid extract can be gotten for cheap prices. It's not uncommon to get Pilsener light for $11.50 (blend includes CaraPils) and others for $13.50. Plus you get a handy plastic jar to store your speciality grains, hops and yeast in for later.

 

[carniebrew]

Briess liquid extract can be gotten for cheap prices. It's not uncommon to get Pilsener light for $11.50 (blend includes CaraPils) and others for $13.50. Plus you get a handy plastic jar to store your speciality grains, hops and yeast in for later.

I used to buy the 15kg "growlers" of Briess LME from Grain & Grape...it's already good value at ~$89 (under $6 per kg), and even better when you get it during G&G's 20% off sale, when it's $4.75 per kg (or like paying $7 for a 1.5kg can).

And you end up with a handy 10 litre 'cube' to use for no chilling small batch brews or storing diluted starsan, etc....

 

[monkeymagik]

I've found since I've been bulk priming I get that surprised "this tastes exactly like Little Creatures" look from people.

 

[Forever Wort]

I used to buy the 15kg "growlers" of Briess LME from Grain & Grape...it's already good value at ~$89 (under $6 per kg), and even better when you get it during G&G's 20% off sale, when it's $4.75 per kg (or like paying $7 for a 1.5kg can).

And you end up with a handy 10 litre 'cube' to use for no chilling small batch brews or storing diluted starsan, etc....

I'd like to do this but my only concern is the fiddliness of working with such a large amount of goop.

 

[carniebrew]

Yeah, my problem was remembering to take it out of the fridge far enough in advance so that it'd warm up a bit. Pouring goop at ~4C takes a loooooong time....

 

[bigmacthepunker]

Rye ebb

 

[Rdyno]

I just want to say something, it is immensely better waking up after two or three days on the piss with a blander taste in you mouth like a CUB beer, the craft beers are heavy with flavour that is not desirable after MASSIVE drinking sessions. In saying that where I'm from VB and Carlton Draught and for the old blokes Reches are the major beers when I went to NZ Lion Red was the major working class beer most people here that have tried it think it tastes like ****? I thought Lion Red tasted good my dad is from NZ and still buys VB over there as he's drank it for 30 years lol.

So some people just like what they are used to, but the continuous drinking taste is a big factor if you could reproduce the same taste over and over you may get sick of it, try this with craft beers at the shop drink only one beer as much as you can and see how long till you want to change. This is where I can see the good part of mass produced beers yes they may be bland but they are like pasta and rice as in they are a staple, think of it this way if you eat rice every day imagine what a desert or a roast would taste like.

I enjoy my craft beers and home brewing but I cant drink very tastey beers all night every night as that is like eating only desert every night for dinner