Not according to the label for an average gravity IPA. While I understand that 1 pkg of dry yeast will oftentimes suffice, I hate to gamble and risk wasting a batch as a result of under-pitching.
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White Labs WLP001 Dry Yeast Coming Soon
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jambop
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Says on the front of the packet 0.5 - 1g per liter of wort. I know that I get a great fermentation from pitching one pack of Lallemand dried yeast into up to 27l of wort .
Well, 0.5 g/L means 11 g will do for 22 L. The middle of the range means a pack will do for 16.5 L. I guess if you want to be conservative you should go ahead and be conservative, but my guess is that it can be pitched just like most other dry yeasts and I would be really surprised if people start reporting failures using one pack for 5 gallons of an average gravity IPA.
Like I said, the (warning - pdf) tech sheet says 1 pack will do 5 gallons.
Like I said, the (warning - pdf) tech sheet says 1 pack will do 5 gallons.
Red over White
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The suggested pitch rates and pitch rate calculators are helpful, but to me actual performance in the fermenter is all that really matters. If I am having extended lag times and reduced consumption of intial gravity points, I messed up one of the most critical parts of the fermentation process for the types of beers I make. Now, I do understand that with certain strains for certain styles this is perfectly fine to have a long lag time. None of this is in any way meant to be inflammatory, just my view on fermenting just like the brewers and their beers that I am trying to replicate.
Since when do we trust what the yeast companies say? Or to be for our benefit? This same company used to say over and over one could direct pitch their soda bottle tube back when it had 50-70 billion cells on a good day. Yes people made beer with those recommendations but obviously there was a better way.
Rather than just tell us to do something, I would rather White Labs actually say how many active cells will make it into the wort. Does one packet give you 50, 100, 150, 200 million viable cells? I venture to say they will not go that far.
Rather than just tell us to do something, I would rather White Labs actually say how many active cells will make it into the wort. Does one packet give you 50, 100, 150, 200 million viable cells? I venture to say they will not go that far.
And one wonders why not, since they subcontact production to Lallemand who does go that far.
"For most strains, 1g of dry yeast contains a minimum of 5 billion viable cells, but the number will vary slightly from batch to batch."
And the specification of ≥ 5 x 10^9 CFU per gram of dry yeast is considered to be quite conservative by many. OTOH, if you think the liquid version is unreliable then I can see why you would also think the dry version is unreliable. But that's not a criticism of dry yeast.
Are you? Also not meaning to be inflammatory; just honestly asking. Every time I direct pitch dry yeast per the manufacturer's recommendations it's bubbling its butt off by the next morning and attenuates as expected. Full disclosure - I don't do lagers and acknowledge that that might be very different.
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My LHBS stopped carrying liquid yeast altogether.
Red over White
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Here's the way I look at it, the Pros pitch fresh yeast that are at various phases in their cycle and they have quick, healthy ferments in the first 24 hours that drop the wort pH appropriately and the yeast express themselves as intended. If I direct pitch dry yeast (ale or lager) it doesn't have the running head start the pros have and every cell starts from a literal crawl.
A vitality starter with just a 4 hour head start can many times quadruple (depending on the strain) the performance with the exact same initial cell count as a direct dry pitch. The difference for me is 1-3 points in the first 24 hours dry pitch or 8-16+ points in the same time frame with the vitality starter. The latter is very much in line with what the pros are getting and I cannot argue with the results in the glass. Don’t get me wrong here, both ways produce beer. I freeze a liter of wort from every batch and it takes me virtually no appreciable time to make a couple vitality starters as the strike water is heating up. So I find that this little extra step is very much worth it and I only need 1 sachet of yeast for 12P beers and get very impressive performance out of it.
11g of dry yeast would be a minimum of 55 billion cells. Considering the Imperial folks are giving 200 billion cells, that is a large divide.
I trust Lallemand because they do give out the specs. It is not my job as a consumer to wade through the corporate structure etc... I have not had great experiences direct pitching anything outside of an Imperial pouch. It is a numbers game to some extent as well as freshness. I would never aim for under 100 billion cells in a 5 gallon batch unless purposefully under pitching and really target much more. So why would I expect the dry packet to be almost twice the minimum stated amount just to meet my lowest bar? Seems optimistic.
I agree, a starter for the dry pack is probably a good approach.
OK I'm confused. You trust Lallemand but that's Lallemand's spec that you say doesn't meet the lowest bar. Do you mean you trust Lallemand to tell you that they recommend underpitching?
And the spec is "≥ 5 x 10^9 CFU per gram" which people have shown in actual experiments is really ">>>." There's almost certainly >200B cells in a pack that has been stored properly and isn't past its expiration date.
jambop
Well-Known Member
I use dry yeast because it is convenient eg. I do not need to make a starter and the yeast is always within its useable time limit even up to a year or more after I bought it and can keep a few different yeasts in the fridge. I recently used one pack of rehydrated Lallemand Notty to ferment 27L of bitter and it was finished in less than four days. So I kind of ask myself why would I use a yeast slurry at three times the price ? I can save the yeast for another batch if I want too. However I have never used wet yeast other than saved used dried yeast so I do not really know how much better wet yeast actually is... is it that much better? I think if I was still working in labs I may have used wet yeast but the investment in gear just adds to my costs... I would have had all the stuff I needed for free and prepped sterile 
If I was still working in labs I'd do all sorts of things differently. But I'm not really sure the beer would turn out any better. As I've said before, the more I brew the more I wish I had stolen more stuff from all the labs I worked in over the years.
I hate to waste money.
I sense you are a little irritated or trying to poke at me. No need. I do not really have a dog in this fight. I trust more what Lallemand says because they seem to be forthright with information. That does not speak to underpitching or weather or not there is plenty of yeast in the sachet. Giving information is not recommending anything.
I do not trust White Labs as much due to their consistent lack of information and more recommendations. This leaves room for assumptions like Lallemand's posted specs alligning with White Labs unposted specs. They probably do, but it is an assumption none the less.
As for how many active viable cells one will get, who knows? It is between 55 and 200 billion. I might try it if the price was not $12.95 but would rather use the liquid in the end anyway. I left convenient many years ago
Well, you're wrong. You've made statements that strike me as contradictory and I was genuinely not sure that I understood your point. I also asked (sincerely) a while back for people to give some concrete examples of what they mean when they talk about differences in performance (other than attenuation) between liquid and dry. No one really has. Finally, I also pointed out my own experience with direct pitching of dry yeasts and asked why I shouldn't be happy with it. Only one person responded to that (BTW, thanks @Red over White).
Oh, I did not see the request for performance differences. From my experiences it has very long lag times and the yeast not getting the attenuation down as far as a liquid procedure. I attribute this to more of a cell count issue than the yeast being dry. My most recent try of Verdant just seemed like the yeast was underpitched. The lag was 36 hours+ and it stopped around 1.019/1.018. My liquid approach has always yielded much better outcomes but a 2L starter is always the last step. If I had pitched two sachets of Verdant I think the outcome would have been different.
I try to remember that the role of yeast is not just measured by attenuation. Yeast need the strength to do the cleanup work after the fermentation as well. (eat up the VDKs). Along lag means one is tapping into that strength up front.
Sorry for any statements. No need for anything weird of Dry yeast!
I try to remember that the role of yeast is not just measured by attenuation. Yeast need the strength to do the cleanup work after the fermentation as well. (eat up the VDKs). Along lag means one is tapping into that strength up front.
Sorry for any statements. No need for anything weird of Dry yeast!
jambop
Well-Known Member
I am sort of holding off using liquid yeast because I know what I get with the dry yeasts I use. Now I have two brew fridges but very often have two fermentations going at one time so I would need to invest in another fridge to keep my cultures in. Add to that the costs involved in sub culturing materials and disposables and I am thinking there has to a very worth while reason to do this. Now I do want to make as good a beer as I can but there has to be some tangible reason to shell out what could be more than a couple of hundred Euros just to support the medium when I can have dried yeasts ready to go in my domestic fridge taking up nearly no room at all and none contaminable . I have to say though I always rehydrate my dried yeast before I pitch it .The other thing about dried yeasts I do not fully understand is the suggested pitch rate . If I followed Lallemand I would need more than one pack per 27L which is my standard fermentation volume yet I get a vigorous fermentation after 2-3 hours from just one 11g pack at 19C . So another question would be is this a indicative of a good rate of pitching ? Or can you still have a very active fermentation while under pitched ? Logic tells me it should be but maybe this is not something that logical
And these are things that I have literally never experienced. Always minimal lag time. In fact, the last time I direct pitched one pack of S-04 into 5 gallons of 1.071 wort I had a giant mess to clean up the next morning. If it's blowing the airlock off in 12 hours I figure it must have started fermenting pretty much immediately. Always expected attenuation, at least within rounding error. I suppose we'll never figure out why our experiences are so different.
jambop
Well-Known Member
I am not calling you a liar but there was something very wrong with that sachet of yeast. I can honestly say I have never had a fermentation that did not take off really well after a period of only 2-3 hours pitching my rehydrated dried yeast and has been finished fermenting after 4 days . There have been times I did not reach my expected gravity but that has been down to a poorly controlled mash temperature. I have since found out a lot about my Grainfather S40 brewing system and have started step mashing my grain and this has eliminated the problem.
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Price creep is inevitable, I suppose. But $15 for a vial/package of liquid yeast seems, um, aggressive. When I first started home brewing, one of the main attractions was brewing 5 gallons for around $15 dollars. I can see liquid yeast offerings becoming fewer and fewer, resulting in fewer and fewer dry yeast offspring, as well as several smaller liquid yeast propagators following Giga yeast into the history books.
jambop
Well-Known Member
Price creep ! I reckon that it can be almost worthwhile to buy the real thing than the clone
. I see a clone recipe for a popular beer in a home brew suppliers in the UK £48 for a 23L kit plus P&P not getting any change from £55 then you have to make it ! Now that kit is actually good value in as much as the quantities of hops are all more than 100g. So if you do not buy the kit but put the ingredients together yourself this sees you having to buy two bags of all the hops in the brew and two different yeasts. I calculated the hops and yeast alone to run to about €40 now there will be some left over so if you want to brew again then one bag of each hops would probably be OK but we are taking about initial out lay add in the other ingredients and you have an expensive brew ... that is not guaranteed to come good .That is one of the reasons I stick to traditional English style beers a 25L batch is very reasonably priced and as everybody who knows anything about beer knows English beers are amongst the finest in the world
I am glad you are getting good performance. I never had a similar experience each time I ventured off the liquid yeast path over the last twenty years. I can say that when I failed to make a starter and direct pitched liquid, I had a similar level of poor performance. So my path is frozen 50ml vial built up to 2L over the week before. Lots of fresh, health cells but not as easy as dry. I know, it is strange how user experiences vary so much.
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Northern_Brewer
British - apparently some US company stole my name
As per that blog from White Labs, both have their good points. But two of the more critical ones are that the stress of drying suppresses ester production and hurts flocculation. And the relevance of those factors will depend on the beer. If you're making lager for kegging, then suppressing esters is positively helpful and you're not so bothered about flocculation. But if you're making British cask/bottle-conditioned styles, then you really care about both of those aspects and want them to be working as well as possible.
It also doesn't help that the available dry options for British strains aren't that great. They're OK, they make beer, but they're like a Big Mac compared to the bistro of the US yeast labs and the Michelin-starred buffet of the British yeastbanks.
So it's not just about dry versus wet, but also about the choice of strains. And of course you don't have to pay more - indeed the cheapest option here at least, is to harvest from bottle-conditioned beers or pub casks. But if you want more choice, use Brewlab slopes :
https://www.themaltmiller.co.uk/product-category/ingredients/yeast/brewlab-yeast-slopes/
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I've used WLP001 liquid and it worked well, more recently I've used many different Lallemand, Fermentis dry CellarScience with equally good results. Cool that they released a dry version but still pricy when you can get some of the ones I mentioned for $5 or 3 for $10.
jambop
Well-Known Member
Yes I can easily get those yeasts sent to me and have been advised to get some by a UK brewer. I may get round to doing that but I will need to invest a lot of money to make it worthwhile. In the meantime I am getting good results from Windsor, Notty, ESB and Verdant from Lallemand . I have similar issues when it come to hops. I can get a much wider range of pellet hops and have heard they make better beer and have advantages but I use hope flowers because they are much easier to use in my system and create less clean up problems. I can get nearly all the leaf varieties I need for my beers so have not dabbled in pellets yet. Being a brewer who is returning to brewing after a very long lay off the array of products available to the home brewer now is mind blowing.
Northern_Brewer
British - apparently some US company stole my name
You really don't. You don't need a flow hood - or a stir plate, or conicals. A jam jar shaken every few hours as you pass by is good enough, and a hop cone/pellet before sterilising the wort will discourage most nasties. Coming from a professional background in microbiology myself, I completely understand the instinct to do things "properly" - but low-tech is good enough as long as you're careful, like not doing it in your kitchen as there's too many spores from food.
The whole pellet/cone thing is not at all clearcut, it's one of the classic debates in brewing, you'll have people vehemently defending both. There are some differences but in terms of things that the average homebrewer should worry about, it's probably down at about #17, so don't sweat it. It's certainly not the case that pellets make "better beer" in general.
Anyway, this is all rather off-topic, I suggest that we continue this over on the main English thread, where I've just posted some pics of what proper yeast looks like... (and you can get an idea of how not-like-a-lab the trad English breweries are!)
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/thread...favorite-recipe.472464/page-110#post-10243294
WLP 066 London Fog dry yeast should be coming out soon.
If the new yeast really is WLP001 in dried form, then I believe it will be unique from other dried American yeasts. Consider average apparent attenuation for each strain of yeast. US-05 and BRY-97 both regularly exceed 80%, while WLP001 is closer to or even below 75%. Most brewers probably couldn't care less. But some do.
duncan_disorderly
Well-Known Member
How do you know that?WLP 066 London Fog dry yeast should be coming out soon.
From WLP customer Service. WLP066 London Fog. I told them that I hesitate to order Liquid Yeast because FedEx takes 5 days or longer and it’s warm and the ice packs have melted by the time I receive it.
I mentioned that I hope they keep producing more dry variations of their liquid yeast. That’s when I received that response.
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BrewnWKopperKat
ʘ‿ʘ
also: Benefits of Liquid and Dry Yeast (which is what I read when commenting in #4).
Northern_Brewer
British - apparently some US company stole my name
Heh - they've redirected that link, now it points to "Behind the R&D: WLP001 Dry California Ale Yeast®" on 16 January rather than "Benefits of Liquid and Dry Yeast" on 6 February. So notably there's no longer the table comparing the two. Fortunately the Internet doesn't forget :
https://web.archive.org/web/20230209204523/https://www.whitelabs.com/news-update-detail?id=94
And let's just put the table here for posterity :
| DRY | LIQUID | |
| Selection | Not all strains can be dried effectively due to the large scale and process of drying, so the selection is limited | Production of liquid yeast is generally smaller scale, flexible, and can be optimized to provide a much greater selection of strains |
| Flavor | Generally more neutral in flavor and aroma. The drying process contributes some stress on yeast, so flavor production in fermentation is muted | Liquid counterparts will have more distinct aromas and complex flavors due to the health and viability |
| Ease of Use | Open package and sprinkle on top of wort (no rehydration required) | Twist open cap and add to wort or pump inline with our FlexPump (Aseptic Transfer System). |
| Flocculation | Due to the drying process, cell membranes can often be deficient in membrane proteins responsible for flocculation. This can lead to less effective flocculation capabilities. | Strain-dependent, but consistent flocculation properties by strain. This is a result of robust cell membranes with intact flocculation proteins, leading to efficient flocculation. |
| Nutrient Requirements | Some nutrient availability in the form of non-viable yeast, adding sterols, nitrogen, and other micro-nutrients | Wort oxygenation is critical, as is adequate FAN and other micro-nutrients |
| Pitch Rate | 50-100g/hL, somewhat dependent on actual viable yeasts in the package | Precise cell counts, allowing accurate custom calculations for pitch rate |
| Fermentation Speed | Dependent on pitch rate | Dependent on pitch rate |
| Shelf Life | Long shelf life (12-24 months from production date). Can be stored at ambient temperature, although it is recommended to store it under refrigeration to maximize the shelf life. | Shorter shelf life than dry, but grown fresh with high viability percentage. Should always be stored under refrigeration. |
| Quality Control | Follows strict specification standards for bacterial and wild yeast contaminants per 1 million yeast cells | The propagation process results in higher purity cultures, enabling the detection of wild yeast & aerobic bacteria contaminants per 40 million yeast cells and anaerobic bacteria contaminants per 140 million yeast cells. This typically allows liquid yeast to be repitched for more generations |
| Repitching | Can be repitched, but typically has a potentially higher microbial load (see Quality Control above), which can grow over generations, resulting in contamination of harvested yeast quickly | More sensitive QC specifications allow liquid yeast to be repitched for more generations without the risk of increased microbial population |
| Shipping | Can be shipped in less temperature-regulated environments, resulting in less packaging (insulation and ice) and less expensive shipping methods. Due to its dry form, it is typically easier to import/export in global markets. | Requires cold shipping to maintain viability, which requires insulated shippers with ice and fast shipping methods. Can be challenging to import/export in some countries due to strict regulations for live cultures |
| Cost/Value | Typically lower priced than the equivalent volume of liquid yeast | Higher priced than dry yeast, but better value when repitched as a result of the number of generations that can be gained from liquid yeast |
Thanks. For a few bucks or some extra time, why not go liquid? The chart shows it is better in the end.
OP
OP
rtstrider
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I can see where this might be great with a seasonal strain. However, instead of using a dried form of WLP001 I'd much rather step it up from the Sierra Nevada Pale Ale bottles. Also there is a good bit of liquid WLP001 in the freezer bank. I've had way better/consistent results when using liquid over dried cultures outside of Lallemand Voss. Would like to see WLP029 become available in dried form! Maybe just maybe that would help with the flocculation issues that strain has when being repitched?
To save time and money?
And quite a bit of what's in that table is at least somewhat debatable.
WLP029 is genetically a pastorianus yeast. Based on average attenuations, you should be able to get something really close to WLP029 using W-34/70.
With respect to the comparison table above... keep in mind, some items are more important than others, so a weighted comparison is more appropriate. Ease of use (never having to make a starter) and cost are a few of THE MOST important factors IMO... (not that the cost factor is any good with the dry WLP001).
Yes dry is easy but from that perspective, it is just as easy to direct pitch a liquid pack. I am not convinced that one package of dry has as many viable cells as many of us once thought. If you can get fresh liquid the choice leans towards liquid imho. I decided long ago that I needed to put the most emphasis on yeast handling in my brewing. As I progressed with hot and cold side techniques, not putting an emphasis on getting a lot of fresh, viable yeast was counterproductive. No worries for any method, to each there own. But if you want the best outcome for your time invested, liquid yeast is the path imho.
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