Dry yeast starters?

[MattMann]

This is just hypothetical..... But could you make a starter with dry yeast. I mean i know it would work, but would it help start fermentation quicker? Or would it cause off flavors or anything? Could you make slants from dry yeast? I know that's its cheap, and would probably never make slants from it, but would it work? Just want everyones opinion.

--matt--

 

[bwitt]

Yes you can make a starter from dried yeast. It is just normally not done because dried yeast is so cheap. The amount of time and effort it takes to build up a starter is not worth the few dollars that you would save. Most folks would just pitch 2 packs.

I made a starter from some dried S-189 lager yeast that I had a hard time finding. It also cost me about $7 per 12g pack. I wanted to freeze some samples of it to use later so I made a 2l starter and collected 1/4 of it for freezing and pitched the rest on Saturday. It started fermenting within 12 hours.