Questions about yeast for a newbie

[ECH]

New to brewing (other than the can kits), and had a question about yeast.

On OBK, I was looking at say the Belgian Blond Ale (all grain) and it gives about 6 different yeasts as suggestions:

T-58 Dry Yeast
WLP500 Trappist Ale Yeast
WLP530 Abbey Ale Yeast
WLP550 Belgian Ale Yeast
WLP570 Belgian Golden Ale Yeast
WLP575 Belgian Golden Ale Yeast Blend


Using the same ingredients, how different would these different yeasts make the final flavor profile of the beer?

Being new to this, I can see where trying the different yeasts to make a completely different beer using the rest of the ingredients the same could be quite addicting!

Also, is there any difference in using a dry yeast over a smack pack yeast other than the obvious, one being dry, one not being dry. Is it still just a simple pour into the wort in the fermentor? Or is there more prep with the smack packs, or other liquid type yeasts?

Advantages or disadvantages of either?

With a dry yeast, I know you can rehydrate it prior to pitching, is it worth it? I would imagine it would depend on the quality of the yeast. What do you use to rehydrate it with? Some of the wort? Just water? How much do you use?

Sorry about all the questions, sometimes I wonder if I don't do too much research when I should just make a batch and go for it!

[JamesC]

Here's a decent resource for all kinds of info. At least I found it helpful. I could take a swing at answering parts of your questions, but being relatively new to brewing as well, I'll let the more experienced guys take care of the finer details.

http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter6.html

[Jake]

If you're a lazy brewer like myself, I prefer dry yeasts. I don't bother re-hydrating because I've always had great results by just pitching. Smack packs are ok to pitch if your beer is going to be below 1.050 (approx 5% range), but anything more than this you should use make a starter ... Depends who you talk to too, many would suggest making starter for all smack packs regardless.

Myself, the dry yeast (SO5, nottingham, etc) are just too simple and produce a great beer - although there is not near as much variety with the dry yeasts.

[Jake]

I've done a side by side comparison between S05 and Wyeast 1056 (10 gallon batch split between two carboys), and I had a hard time telling the difference. If you're getting into Belgians, Saisons, and more complex beers, liquid may be the way to go. In my opinion, if you're looking for a clean dry american style ale (whether APA, IPA, american stout, etc ... ), you just can't go wrong with the dry.

[Al-Loves-Wine]

What Jake said! Belgians are all about the yeast, as they are what add the flavor to most of those styles.

But for a lot of American style beers, S05 and Nottingham are a couple of the best dry you can use. They are neutral, dont add any specific flavors and make great beers. Nottingham is by far one of my favorite dry yeasts, and probably quite under rated.

As you gain more experience, you'll likely want experiment with different liquid cultures, but all mentioned are perfect yeasts for a beginner.

Plus at Noble Grape, all their partial mash kits come with one of those style yeasts.

[jamie_savoie]

Different strains are going to produce different beer.  I almost always use two different strains every time I brew and you would be surprise how different they are when you compare them.

T-58 is suppose to be the equivelent of wy3724 or wlp-565 which is Dupont but I don't think it taste the same imo.  WLP500=chimay.  WLP530=westmalle. WLP550=achouffe.  WLP570=duvel.  WLP575=duvel+ another strains I have no clue

My personal favourites in these is achouffe and westmalle.

When using liquid yeast you need to aerate the wort really well, dry you don't need.  Dry yeast you don't need to rehydrate but it's recommended because as much as half the cells may die if you don't.  I've pitched dry in a bunch of brews with no side effects but I try to always rehydrate because there's less lag time.  And when I hydrate I use about a cup of 80-90F water

[DandyMason]

A quote i read the other day that surprised me ...

"The flavor wheel shows that 59 percent of the aroma (odor) descriptions can be attributed to yeast and 79 percent of the flavor (taste) descriptions also can be attributed to actual yeast byproducts, or components affected by yeast." - from BYO

and like Jamie said skipping rehydration (of dry yeast) kills about half the cells

That being said, i very rarely rehydrate haha

[ECH]

OK, so basically just take your dry yeast and add it to a cup of 90 degree water. How long do you wait once you do that?

Seems like an easy extra step with dry yeast to make sure you are going to get good fermentation. I never had problems in the past with canned kits, but seems like it would be a decent habit to get into.

[DandyMason]

definitely a good habit, youre right.

Jamils yeast book has these steps..

1. warm the dry yeast to room temp
2. prepare an amount of sterile tap water at 105 degrees F equal to 10 times the weight of yeast (10 ml/g of yeast)
3. sprinkle the yeast on top of the water, avoid clumps, let sit for 15 mins and then gently stir
4. once yeast has reconstituted stir again to form a cream and let sit another 5 mins

105F surprised me when I read that first...

[ECH]

That is about 40C. Maybe warmer than normal to give the yeast a jump start? Would think that much warmer than that and it would kill the yeast.

[Chris Craig]

I would feel uncomfortable exposing yeast to temperatures much higher than this, but I've done the 40ºC rehydration as explained by Jamil.  It works just fine, and I recommend it.  You spend 4 hours making beer.  Why not give the best chance possible.

It all has to do with proper pitching rates.  If you don't have enough yeast, then your beer will have a higher final gravity than expected. This could result in an overly sweet beer.  Worse, too little yeast will lead to a longer lag time, and that will produce diacetyl.  Too much diacetyl (butterscotch) is definitely not desirable.  Also, if you have far too few cells, then other yeasts and bacteria have that much more time to take hold and produce all kinds of unwanted flavours.