Multiple Yeast Questions

delete

Okay.

You have a lot going on there and I'm not sure I will specifically address exactly what you have going on but here goes...

I live in WI and won't order yeast in the summer or winter. Period. Luckily there are 3 homebrew shops and they are relatively accomodating should l need something specific and I am able to work with their schedule. If I need something I can talk to them, they will order what they can get and I will know it has been properly cared for rather than left in some UPS truck for who knows how long.

As for starters I use the calculators as a guideline. I am not a pro brewer, I am not independently wealthy, I am not a serious competition guy. I do what I am comfortable with for the given beer within those parameters and hope for the best. It usually works out fine.

Liquid vs. dry... This is an ongoing debate that, from what I can tell, is based on past poor dry yeast technology. I have made good beer with both. I have placed in local/regional competitions using both. I know brewers that use both. I was recently on a ytour at Dark Horse in MI and was told that both they and Arcadia use dry yeast as their house strain. They do culture it and blend it with fresh yeast and have gone through several hundered generations with goal of then mutating strain creating a house character. ...it was an interesting conversation that is fading with time, I wish I had taken notes but what I will always remember is that great beer can and is being made commercially with dry yeast strains that are easily available to you and I.

As for the rest, you could look into slanting and proping your yeast in order to make one pack of yeast equal to many and having your prefered strains available to you as you see fit.

...I hope I answered or helped a little.

I recently had a conversation with the Brew Master at an Albuquerque Brew Pub; he like everyone else started as a Home Brewer.  He said if he was to every go back to Home Brewing he would use dry yeast.  The prejudice against dry yeast is based on old history at the beginning of the Home Brew era.  Yeast options were very limited and not all that good, (ie bakers bread yeast).  Today there are a number of dry yeast specifically for brewing.  They are inexpensive, and easy to use.  The liquid yeast that have become so popular are based on local mutations at various breweries around the world.  That gives us Home Brewers a way of pretending that we can actually create a clone of a commercial beer  .  Never forget this is a hobby and we mostly do it for the bragging rights 

I have tried a number of ways of reusing, storing and culturing yeast.  I have settled on storing very small samples of yeast in sterile water at room temperature.  Stored in this manner the yeast goes dormant and there is no (or at least limited) opportunity for the yeast to mutate.  I use Slants to start my propagation and gradually step up to about 1.5 liter.  This is not the most cost effective process, but it is part of my hobby and I get to brag about being an amateur microbiologist and yeast rancher 

All the best, David

Doorway, that's a lot of yeast.  The shortest path there is to make 5 gallons of weak beer and harvest the yeast.
With one vial or smack pack at 100B cells the innoculation rate is 100,000M cells / 20,000 =5M per ml.  At this pitch rate you will get about a 7 factor growth in yeast.  Make a low gravity extract brew and then pitch the big beer on top of the yeast bed.

I wouldn't try to growth that much yeast without a stir plate.  The other choice is to use 3-4 packages of dry yeast.

David

I see no advantage to liquid yeast unless you're doing something unusual like a Belgian.

If you want to farm yeast, do what the pros do. 
Brew a batch using your favorite yeast (mine is dry Safale US-05).
Then when it comes time to rack, start another batch.
Take a glop of the yeast left behind from the racked batch and use it to start the new batch. 
It will take off immediately and go like crazy.
Repeat.

I use Wyeast because it's a local company and I can get it in good condition . But, if you should look at some recipes in the malsters pro-brewing section of their websites, you will find a lot of Fermentis being used. Especially in Europe. The secret is to use the best ingredients available. Any advantages that liquid yeast may have are worthless if you cannot get it in viable condition.
BTW, I keep a few packs of Fermentis on hand, just in case. And I'll bet a lot of other liquid yeast users do also.
Rusty

The reason for my original post is I have myself convinced I can do a Pilsner Urquell.

Click to expand...

I too am in search of the Holy Grail.