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Hi all,

What has crossed my mind recently is to maximise the use out of a single dry yeast pack, which was sparked by drsmurto's post on liquid yeast starters, so here goes the questions..

Is it feasible to create a yeast starter from a dry yeast pack? If so, how is this done, and what (if any) benefits would I be expecting from this kind of a yeast starter? I'm imagining that the process would be similar if not the same to drsmurto's post, however I'm expecting that maybe a dry yeast may take a little longer to start.

So, if the above idea is feasible, would splitting the yeast starter also be feasible? Once again, if so, how is this done, would you say for example create your initial starter, split it into thirds with the same mixture of light dry malt as you used in the initial starter?

This is my personal view. Others may disagree, but I think dry yeasts are cheap enough for single use, compared to liquid yeasts.

Making and splitting starters from dry yeasts is not normally recommended. Dried yeasts are designed to be pitched either straight into the wort as is, or to be rehydrated first with boiled cooled water before pitching.
If you really want to maximise your use of a single pack of yeast, you have three options, as I see it:

1. Repitch another batch onto the yeast cake of one you have just racked/bottled/kegged. The usual practice is to put a heavier and/or darker beer down than the original.
2. Harvest a cup of slurry into a sanitised container. Chill in the fridge, and it should be good to pitch that for a week or two at least.
3. Harvest most of the slurry, and go through a yeast washing exercise, leaving you with a clean good crop of yeast. It should give you enough to save several small bottles, which can be used to build a starter.

Hi warra48,

Thanks for your reply.

I have yet to use a liquid yeast yet (I probably will one day), so please forgive any ignorance that might be apparent in my post. I'm just trying to understand the subject of yeasts a little better and asking a few questions before I experiment. Here goes the questions!

Ingredients-wise, what's in a liquid yeast pack versus dried yeast packs?

How is pitching a dried yeast into a starter (as I understand is basically a 'mini-wort') different from pitching straight onto your wort in a fermenter? What's going to happen in a starter that wouldn't happen in a fermenter, or better yet, what wouldn't happen in a starter that would happen in a fermenter?

When it comes to splitting the starter into further starters, by splitting the starter you've effectively (as I understand it anyway) 'diluted' the starters, how would you tell that the split starters have reached their 'peak' and either need to be put in the fridge or pitching into your wort?

Have a look at this page from Palmer's "How to Brew".
http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter6-3.html
I think it will give you most of your answers.

You'll notice that a quality pack of dry yeast contains sufficient cells for a normal size batch. (That's for ale, although for lagers two packs are often recommended). There's really no need to build up cell numbers before use.

The pack of 50 mil he talks about are those such as Wyeast Propogater, which do not contain sufficient cells for a normal size batch. Thus you need to make a starter to build the cell numbers.

Wyeast Activator packs do contain enough cells for a normal size batch, but lots of brewers will make a starter and split it and save it to make further starters. The cost of liquid yeasts can be less than using dry yeast if done for a number of generations.

There is more specific strains of liquid yeast available than the more generic strains in dry yeast. For those of us who brew all grain, liquid yeast are therefore often preferable, as we can target them to a specific style of beer we are brewing.

Cheers for that link, looks good, I'll have a read.

G'day Lachie,
Warra48's post is spot on. I don't bother trying to make up starters from dry yeast. Instead, I plan my brewdays and repitch fresh wort onto the yeast cake in the fermenter. I get at least two brews out of a single sachet and I know that I'm putting the second brew onto fresh, viable yeast and it always works with a very short lag time.

For example, I have Hobgoblin ale fermented with Nottingham ale yeast in the fermenter right now - I plan on racking the ale to a keg and repitching some irish ale wort onto the yeast cake on the same day.

By the time you calculate how much the malt extract, heating and effort cost you, it's simply easier to buy another sachet. I will, however, make starters and harvest yeast from the more expensive liquid yeast that I buy.

Cheers,
TL

I used to use a similar process to TL. Except that what I did was to ferment a low gravity beer, rack it off the yeast cake before it had finished fermenting, and pitch fresh high gravity wort onto the yeast cake.

For example, a Munich Lager at 1.045, followed by a Dopplebock at 1.080 both using a German Lager yeast.

I will also point out that pitching 2x packets of dry yeast is not going to cost enough to make it worth culturing a single packet to double the viable cell count.

Kevnlis wrote:...I will also point out that pitching 2x packets of dry yeast is not going to cost enough to make it worth culturing a single packet to double the viable cell count.

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