safale s-33 hard work!

Just tried safale s-33. Was quick to start but after a few days seemed to be done. Did a IPA og was 1.072 and had hoped to get to about 1.018-1.020 but it seemed to be stuck at 1.028. Its taken another 10 days to get it down to 1.022 with gentle persuasion, daily rousing the yeast and raising the temp to 24 deg cel. It just seems to have been hard work with this yeast. Has anyone had similar experience with this yeast?
Cheers :rofl:

Lots of people. Makes good beer though. :thumb:

Good to hear it'll be worth the effort :-)

Did you pitch it dry or make a starter?

I pitched 1 + 1/2 packet dry. Reading up I think making a starter next time might be a good idea. Its going into the bottles this wkend, as the fg been stable for a while at 1.020.
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Usually with dry yeast you should rehydrate rather than make a starter.

I've heard some reports of people making a starter with dried yeast and getting good results. Would making a starter with dried yeast give a different beer flavour than if the yeast was rehydrated?
:wha:

Hello..Yeh I used it on Saturday in a brew (AG).went off like a goodun for 24hrs then looked like it had stopped .OG of 10.50 yesterday (4days later ) was 10.14 so odd one .my first ag see how it's going at the weekend .l rehydrated it to ..

coqueteer said:

I've heard some reports of people making a starter with dried yeast and getting good results. Would making a starter with dried yeast give a different beer flavour than if the yeast was rehydrated?
:wha:

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I don't see the point in creating a starter from dry yeast unless you are propagating. If you are growing yeast for a certain batch size then a starter could be used in just the same way as you would for liquid yeast. You would need to calculate the amount of dry yeast that would be needed for the starter size and work out the propagation rate. On a homebrew scale it's not really worth it when multiple packets of dry yeast are cheap enough to get the correct inoculation rate without propagation.

All you need to do with dry yeast is rehydrate according to the manufacturers instructions or directly pitch into wort (if that is also recommended) and ensure you are using enough packets of dry yeast for the batch size and gravity.

Remember a liquid yeast starter serves two purposes; checks viability and propogates more yeast from a packet that does not usually contain enough cells to innoculate a homebrew batch.

:thumb:

thanks for the replies. Going forward I think i'll take your advice and just rehydrate when using dry yeast making sure pitch enough and make up starter for liquid.
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Some dry yeasts are best just sprinkled from the packet. They are designed to be used that way.

clibit said:

Some dry yeasts are best just sprinkled from the packet. They are designed to be used that way.

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Although you can use them this way. It is always better to rehydrate according to the instructions. If you just sprinkle, a lot (half ?) of the cells will die on hitting the wort so you are effectively under pitching. You'll still get fermentation and produce beer but you increase the chances of off-flavours (fusels, Diacetyl etc)

AIUI the instructions for commercial breweries using dry yeast are always to rehydrate before pitching.

For homebrew it's really easy to do, takes 10 minutes and costs nothing so I can't think if a reason not to.

Hi Dr Mike

Most commercial brewers actually, depending on their FV style pitch dried into wort.

This is for a few reasons.

You don't have to clean buckets/spoons/whisks then sterilise them, reducing the risk of infection. Brewing is very labour intensive and they also cut this corner!

Adding the yeast to water at 27 degrees, then throwing into an FV at 20 shock cools the yeast.

Many new breweries, have sealed FVs, so once the transfer from copper to FV is underway and temp stabilised they sprinkle yeast on the surface, then close man-way door, it does not die, (why would it?) Although this method does run the risk, if the transfer temp climbs it can harm yeast.

In 25 years of commercial brewing, many trials have been done, rehydrating and 'sprinkling'. it doesn't really make a lot of difference to be honest, the fermentation gets on at the same rate.

If you are going to re-hydrate, why not use a little sterile wort? Isn't that like making a starter, but with dried?

I can see the logic in a starter to see if yeast is viable, but doing 2 brew/day for 5 days a week (sometimes more) for 20 odd years, I've never known a packet of dried yeast not be viable (admittedly I have mainly used wet yeast, but I have acted as a consultant to open around 15 breweries who in-turn use dried yeast), the problem lay else where, such as transferring beer from copper into FV and they have left the chiller on from the previous brew, v.common. Or a brewery has done a brew and it has been exceedingly cold over-night etc.

To the OP, if you are pithing into a beer of this gravity, you do need to up the pitching rate to almost double. the reason being, your volume has remained pretty much the same, (I assume) therefore the amount of dissolved oxygen will remain the same (actually a little less, because your wort is more saturated) so yeast will only multiply until this O2 is used up, you are asking a volume of yeast to work twice as hard, with less O2. I has simply run out of steam! Got large celled instead of Budding (splitting) and dropped to the bottom, bet your beer is clear!

WBR

H

Valuable contributions from Dr Mike & Hoppy :thumb:

Most dried yeast instructions I have read usually recommend rehydration on the basis that this will reduce lag time, and some of those that recommend rehydration to reduce lag time also recommend the option of sprinkling directly onto wort therefore by inference, sprinkling directly onto wort would increase lag time.

As a homebrewer it is safe enough for me to follow rehydration technique and correct pitching rates and observe a vigorous ferment within 12 hours. I haven't 'sprinkled' since kit days and before I became more careful about brewing in general.

I can understand the commercial reasons for sprinkling, saving time and reducing infection risks for batches that provide a living wage. Out of interest do commercial breweries generally pitch more dried yeast than recommended?

Thanks Hoppy for that detailed info. I was relaying the advice from John Palmer and in the yeast book.

I believe it is osmotic shock which can cause viability issues when sprinkling. Do commercial breweries who sprinkle compensate with a higher pitching rate ? A 11g Fermentis sachet is just about right for 5 gallons if it's 100% viable but any less and you might be underpitching.

Managing the temp step is easy enough. Once it's hydrated you just mix an equal volume of wort which will get it down to 23 to 24C, then let it stand for 5 to 10 mins before pitching.

Hi All

Dried yeast cells are already packed full of nutrition, so there is a train of thought that rehydrating with wort can reduce osmotic shock by having similar levels of nutrition on each side of the cell wall.

Regarding commercial pitching rates, you must remember that all things being equal on hopped wort composition, commercial brewers. Do have much higher levels of dissolved oxygen, up to 20ppm if using food O2 or 6-8ppm for aeration, therefore higher levels of propigation. This leads to a three day full fermentation. For example, 1045-1010. Chilling will then be for 3 days (ale).

So brewtim, in answer to your question of recommended to actual pitching rates, they will be around or slightly below (10 grm for a gallon) recommended rates, but with a much higher level of propigation.

WBR

H

Using rehydrated S-04 (11g in 23L) in normal strength beers, I usually get to FG in 3 or 4 days. I usually give it another couple if days to clean up and then cool it. I pitch at 18C and then let it free rise to 20C after 12 hours.

Nottingham is about as quick but others (US-05 or BRY-97) are slower.

Interesting stuff guy's :thumb:

Looks like you have your O2 levels about right.

I do remember for a contract brew we did regularly, I used to use 500g of SA-04 in 4100 litres which equates to 5.5grm/gallon but we were using pure O2 through a stainless sinter on the cold side of the paraflow at 3litres/min/barrel.

One thing I have ascertained in my last 25 years of brewing, there is more than one way to skin a cat and the proof of the pudding........

WBR

H

Hi all,
Great response to my post and pulling together a good source of info from many years of brewing experience. Thanks all for taking time to reply
:thumb:
cheers all
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