Yeast Nutrient

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Pumpy

Pumpy's Brewery.
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Or is it just a placeabo

Pumpy
 
I love to answer these sorts of questions. If depends :)

Most all grain worts and kits (dunno about extract) have enough nutrients for the yeast to be happy. Nutrient will be of most help to the big beer, like those with an OG of 1.060 or more.

I use it on all beers now, just because it is easier and cheap insurance.

Cheers
Pedro
 
Pedro do you pop vitamins ?

I will give nutrient a go !! Pumpy
 
dumb question (maybe): i have some powdered bread yeast in fridge. if i put a spoonful in some warm water & nuke it in microwave, will this give me 'nutrient' or am i wasting my time ?

cheers
 
I have done about 15 All grainers now and heaps of kits and i must say that i have used nutrient for some of them and never noticed any diff. I'm not saying it dont work but i have not noticed any benefits. But what I have been doing in more recent times, due to the large stockpile of packet yeasts that seam to gather up, is thrown one of them into the boil. Dont ask me why, maybe someone can tell my why I would do this? I can only guess that it was sugested on this site at some stage and it seams like a good way to reduce the ever mounting pile of dry yeast.
 
redbeard and SJW

One of the things in yeast nutrient is dead yeast hulls, so that is where the idea of throwing bread or old brewing yeast into the kettle came from. If I have a packet yeast for any reason, I usually throw that in the boil. Not sure if they make a difference by themselves, as they are just one part of the overal yeast health picture.

Cheers
Pedro
 
I'll chuck in a couple of packets of dry yeast about 30 mins. from the end of the boil.

If I reculture from a bottle of Coopers Sparkling Ale I'll add a pinch of dry yeast when boiling the starter too.

Can't say for sure if they make any difference though.

Warren -
 
Zinc is supposed to be the most important nutrient you can add. This is lifted off the Craftbrewer site (check the Yummies for Yeast article by Graeme Sanders in Materials & Methods)

Zinc Solutions

Two common sources of zinc are Zinc Chloride (ZnCl2) and Zinc Sulphate that normally has water attached to it (ZnSO4.7H20). This hydrated ZnSO4 is still a crystal, it just absorbs water from the atmosphere. You can get these from school labs or lab suppliers.

In these examples we are looking at adding 0.4ppm of zinc to the final wort.

ZnCl2
Make a solution of 4.17g ZnCl2 (dry) per litre of de-ionised or distilled water.
This solution contains 2mg of Zinc per mL.
So for 20L wort you add 4ml to get 0.4 ppm Zn in the wort

ZnSO4.7H20
Make a solution of 35 grams of ZnSO4 per litre of deionised or distilled water.
This solution contains 8 mg of zinc per mL.
So for 20L wort you add 1ml to get 0.4 ppm Zn in the wort
 
As has already been said, a good wort should have enough nutrients for your yeast to work happily.

Homebrewers do not have the equipment to measure whether nutrient is having an effect or not. There are so many other variables going on that even terminal gravity is not a very good guide.

If you are making starters, yeast nutrient is a good idea. "Healthy parents have healthy children."

Follow the manufacturer's useage rates. If it only states an amount for a regular 23 litre brew, scale this amount for your starter volume. A set of scales that weigh small amounts down to 0.1 of a gram is very important to get this amount right. If your nutrient calls for 1 teaspoon per 23 litres, it is hard to visually use 1/23 of a teaspoon of nutrient.

I bought some Wyeast nutrient, and use it in all my brews and starters. As Pedro said, is good insurance.

If adding zinc, follow Rob's guidelines, a little is vital for your yeast, a lot is toxic. Australia has very old soils and one of the trace elements often lacking due to long term leaching of the soil is zinc. Many nutrients end up bound in the hot break, and may not even make it into the fermenter, so if using nutrient additions, consider boiling them up separate to sanitize and add straight to the fermenter rather than to the main boil.
 
RobW said:
Zinc Solutions
<snipped>
So for 20L wort you add 4ml to get 0.4 ppm Zn in the wort
[post="57398"][/post]​

Hi RobW

I think you putting too much zinc into the wort. From my readings, you only need 0.15 ppm of zinc for the yeast. Have a read of this paper whcih describes some results from achieving the correct zinc level. They only add 0.1 gm/l of zinc.

Cheers
Pedro
 
Hey Guys they say it is the Zinc in Oysters that gives it the Aphrodisiac in humans.
Is it the same for yeast cells?
Pumpy
 
Does that work too POL cheaper than Oysters ;)

Pumpy
 
Gulf Brewery said:
RobW said:
Zinc Solutions
<snipped>
So for 20L wort you add 4ml to get 0.4 ppm Zn in the wort
[post="57398"][/post]​

Hi RobW

I think you putting too much zinc into the wort. From my readings, you only need 0.15 ppm of zinc for the yeast. Have a read of this paper whcih describes some results from achieving the correct zinc level. They only add 0.1 gm/l of zinc.

Cheers
Pedro
[post="57462"][/post]​

Thanks Pedro, interesting read. As I said my quote was a direct lift from the Craftbrewer site & I don't profess to be any kind of guru ;). Obviously the zinc content of the malt used is important in the final analysis and since those figures seem to be European and as POL points out our soils are very deficient in lots of trace elements I wonder if we need to add a little more zinc for Aus malts than say for German malts. Do you have any idea of what might constitute toxic zinc levels in a wort? It would be good to know because if it is relatively low we would need to be careful but if it was say 100 times the level we are aiming to achieve then it wouldn't really make much difference & a bit more zinc would likely be better than less. That said I haven't noticed any decrease in yeast performance since I started adding zinc so I think that figure (o.4 ppm) is probably well in the ballpark.
 
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