Which Dry Yeasts Do You Keep On Hand?

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

Nottingham is a good yeast, so long as you treat it with respect.

Pros - ferments very quickly, flocculates extremely well (immoveably compact sediment), tolerates lower temps that most ale yeasts, produces lager-like beers at those low temps, extremely highly attenuative.

Cons - strips hop flavours more than most (and all but destroys aroma), hard to get a malty beer from it because it is so attenuative. Does not tolerate high temps - I made a fusel/ethel batch last summer and it was the worst beer I've ever tasted (even worse than VB). Can produce higher abv% beers, due to attenuation.

Goomba

 

[Bribie G]

A couple of years ago BABBs did a brew day at the Mt Tamborine Brewery when Ian Watson was there and the participants took home a wort cube each and fermented with different yeasts. It was a TTL-ish clone.

On tasting night the pick of the yeasts IIRC were Ringwood and 1469. The Nottingham brew was pretty "meh", as dry as a Nun's and almost twangy like a kit beer. However I did use Notto to do fake lagers a long time ago and it made some nice ones.

 

[HoppingMad]

Ales - US-05 (tried and true - the swiss army knife of yeasts)
Stout & Porter - Danstar Nottingham (quick to ferment and trouble free every time)
Lager - W-34/70 a fantastic lager yeast from the Weihanstephaner lager strain. Comes up dusty initially then cleans up beautifully.

Have a few others kicking around but they're my faves.

Hopper.

 

[Howlingdog]

A couple of years ago BABBs did a brew day at the Mt Tamborine Brewery when Ian Watson was there and the participants took home a wort cube each and fermented with different yeasts. It was a TTL-ish clone.

On tasting night the pick of the yeasts IIRC were Ringwood and 1469. The Nottingham brew was pretty "meh", as dry as a Nun's and almost twangy like a kit beer. However I did use Notto to do fake lagers a long time ago and it made some nice ones.

As I recall Chappo did the Nottingham one and it finished as he said @ 1.003

HD

 

[Nick JD]

US05 and S189. Both so reliable they border on dull.

Recently I've also used S04 and S23 and been happy with the results - in manyways because both actually imparted some yeast character.

 

[jasonharley]

US05 ...... clean as !!!!!

 

[going down a hill]

Windsor is a go to for porters for me. It imparts lovely flavours.

 

[DKS]

I keep my dry yeasts for emergency back ups only so a selection of S-05, Nott, Windsor, Coopers and Brewcellar varieties is in the fridge. Ive occassionaly had to use them and found for the most part they are absolutely fine. If they get too old I chuck em in the kettle for yeast food.
Daz

 

[DUANNE]

ive got nothing against dry yeast but keep none on hand.i cube all my beer so if a starter doesnt take off or an ordered yeast doesnt arrive i can just wait untill i sort something out. if i had to keep something on hand it would most likely be us 05 though.

 

[Tim]

If they get too old I chuck em in the kettle for yeast food.
Daz

You should never put yeast in the kettle as nutrient. Basically you are just autolysing the yeast and imparting all those nasty flavours into your wort. Sure 11g might not be noticeable in 20L of finished beer, but its just bad brewing practice.

 

[amiddler]

Other than the old stayers US-05 and S-189, try 34/70 and Windsor.

I am only just getting into liquid yeast so 34/70 has been my Lager yeast for the past few years. I have used Windsor a few times in my Stout with good results.

Andrew

 

[Bribie G]

I think the use of yeast as yeast nutrient comes from our fellow brewers of the water purification h34r: craft. The fermentables that they press into service (molasses, lots of dextrose, etc) are often very deficient in nutrients so there's a fair amount of yeast hulls etc thrown in as well to give that Turbo Yeast a good start.
However, the resulting "wash" is usually quite disgusting but, of course, gets cleaned up by that other process we don't discuss on this forum. B)

 

[Nick JD]

I throw in a pice of vegemite on toast along with the chicken carcass and the kitten, well it provides the oxygenation before it drowns.

 

[Synthetase]

I thought kittens were for airlocks?

There's nothing wrong with throwing a little bit of yeast into the boil for nutrient. It probably won't add anything but it's not going to give you lysis flavours because the fast-growing fermenting yeast will quickly assimilate all the compounds for their own growth. The problem of autolysis comes mainly from the 'decline' phase of the growth curve. There are large numbers of yeast cells sitting doing nothing with very slow metabolism and lots of them are dying. There isn't enough activity going on to use the large number of compounds released and you get your vegemite goodies. Having said that, I've often left beers on primary for up to two months and not had a problem.

 

[Mikedub]

Ive got a packet of S33 in the fridge, hes a bit of an outcast, keeps to himself, but still gets excited on pitching days, but those show-off US05s always get the nod ahead of him
one day little S33, one day

 

[HeavyNova]

I've got a few packets of US05 in the fridge. I can' remember for sure but I think they would have been in there for about 10 months. Any advice on if they are still usable?

I have a few packets and I'm only looking to do half a batch - about 12 L.

 

[felten]

plug the production date into here http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html

 

[HeavyNova]

plug the production date into here http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html

Good thinking! Cheers!

 

[peaky]

I try to keep a US-05 on hand but it always gets used straight away. Having a dry packet yeast on hand prevents me from taking the time to make a liquid yeast starter from one of my slants. It's nice to be lazy sometimes....

 

[beersom]

A couple of years ago BABBs did a brew day at the Mt Tamborine Brewery when Ian Watson was there

... nup... never happened mate. That wort was made at Eagle Heights Brewery which was 400 metres away from MTB.