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My biggest take-away from the NHC seminars I attended is stir plates and oxygen.
It's all about getting the cell count close, and to get close, the cells have to reach a certain size in diameter and the membrane has to have the resources available before the cell will commit to budding, so nutrients/oxygen/sterols and such are critical for the cell growth that happens in the starter and the fermentor. Stir plates bring in oxygen, release CO2, and keep the cells in constant contact with the resources.
I also heard a logical explanation of why the yeast MFRs say not to start dry yeast. A fresh dry yeast package already has 200+ billion cells, and 200+ billion cells in a typical starter would create competition, and few of those cells would reach the size needed to bud, so we'd just be draining the resources the MFR pumped into the package for very little gain, and possibly loss in vitality. If you need more cells, buy two packages.
I also got to judge porters with Fred Bonjour (another mod here) and did the mini-BOS with John Palmer, which was very neat. The winning Baltic was yummy.
It's all about getting the cell count close, and to get close, the cells have to reach a certain size in diameter and the membrane has to have the resources available before the cell will commit to budding, so nutrients/oxygen/sterols and such are critical for the cell growth that happens in the starter and the fermentor. Stir plates bring in oxygen, release CO2, and keep the cells in constant contact with the resources.
I also heard a logical explanation of why the yeast MFRs say not to start dry yeast. A fresh dry yeast package already has 200+ billion cells, and 200+ billion cells in a typical starter would create competition, and few of those cells would reach the size needed to bud, so we'd just be draining the resources the MFR pumped into the package for very little gain, and possibly loss in vitality. If you need more cells, buy two packages.
I also got to judge porters with Fred Bonjour (another mod here) and did the mini-BOS with John Palmer, which was very neat. The winning Baltic was yummy.