Imperial Yeast and Starters with Owen Lingley, Jess Caudill – BeerSmith Podcast #161

Owen Lingley and Jess Caudill from Imperial Yeast join me this week to discuss brewing yeast, yeast starters, pitch rates, and caring for your beer yeast.

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Topics in This Week’s Episode (43:36)

• Today my guests are Owen Lingley and Jess Caudill from Imperial Yeast. Owen is co-owner at Imperial yeast and worked at Wyeast and also runs Craft Canning and Bottling company. He started Imperial Yeast about 2-1/2 years ago. Jess is head of the technical services department and has been in the beer industry for 22 years including Wyeast and also “Everybody’s Brewing” head of production.
• We start with a discussion about the importance of high quality yeast in making great beer.
• Jess explains how many yeast cells are needed for a typical 5 gal (19 l) batch.
• We talk about starting gravities and the importance of matching your yeast pitch rate to the batch size and gravity.
• Owen explains the concept of viable cells and how viability (living cells) decrease as a package of yeast is stored.
• We discuss dry yeast and why it has a longer shelf life.
• Jess tells us how to ideally store and preserve yeast to extend its viability over time.
• We discuss yeast packaging and Owen tells us about his future packaging plans for Imperial yeast.
• Jess explains why you need more yeast cells when working with a lager.
• Owen talks about yeast starters and why they are important for many beers.
• Jess tells us what size a typical homebrew starter might be.
• We talk about how to make a yeast starter, typical sizes and why you might want to use a stir plate with a starter.
• Jess explains the limits of starter size growth (typically 2-3x).
• We discuss multi-stage starters and how to use them.
• Owen and Jess explain how yeast is grown commercially.
• Owen talks about Imperial yeast, some of their future plans and also Homebrewcon which is coming to his home town.

Sponsors

• Thank you to our sponsor Craft Beer and Brewing Magazine for sponsoring this episode. I encourage you to subscribe to their great magazine!
• And also Anvil Brewing Equipment. Anvil is a new line of kettles, burners and accessories from John Blichmann at Blichmann Engineering. They make top quality brewing equipment built to last a lifetime.
• Also check out BeerSmith, BeerSmith Mobile software and the new DVDs John Palmer and I filmed – How to Brew with Malt Extract and How to Brew All Grain are available now. You can subscribe to the BeerSmith newsletter for free to get some great articles on home brewing.

Thanks to Owen Lingley and Jess Caudill for appearing on the show and also to you for listening!

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