DIY BrewHouse

If you are coming to DIY today and cannot find a place to park.....we are slowly blocking some off in front of the store for you guys.

Dry yeast strains seem to be gaining traction among homebrewers versus liquid yeast for a myriad of reasons. Dry strains are typically lower cost than liquid yeast, more stable, have a longer shelf life (when kept refrigerated), and a wider range of strains are now available compared to only 5 years ago. For example, Lallemand now has dry yeast strains suitable for styles of Belgian Wit, Kolsch, New England, and lacto sours.

Many customers at DIY have asked "should I rehydrate dry yeast prior to pitching?" Ideally, rehydration is beneficial to proper yeast health. However, careful procedures should be followed to avoid damaging the yeast. How to instructions can be readily found with a quick web search. Some tips/pointers that I have followed when rehydrating dry yeast...

- Use spring water or distilled water.

- Most common dry yeast pkgs (for beer) contain ~11 grams. 8 oz of water is sufficient for rehydrating a single yeast package of this size.

- Target water temperature of 95-105 dF. Yeast prefer warm temps when reconstituting their cell wall and preparing for metabolism, however, temps over 110 dF can be lethal to most beer yeast strains.

- Optional use of a rehydration nutrient (GoFerm) is suggested but not a necessity.

- After proper rehydration, allow the yeast slurry to come to equilibrium temp (within 10-15 dF) with the wort/must. E.g. incremental additions of your wort/must to the rehydrated yeast will equalize the temps.

- Pitch within 1 hour after rehydrating, otherwise the yeast will begin depleting their glycogen reserves in a survival mode.

- Use utmost sanitary practices when rehydrating yeast.