All you homebrewers out there know how rewarding it is to craft your very own homebrews. Sitting back and popping open a bottle of your creation is leagues above drinking a beer you bought at the supermarket. Once the brewing bug bites you, it’s hard to focus on anything else. You may find yourself thinking … Read more
Yeast selection is one tool you can use when designing your recipes. So what’s the purpose of yeast in homebrewing award winning beer and mead? Sounds like a silly question doesn’t it. “Yeast ferment sugars in the wort or must to make alcohol” seems to be the obvious answer. But when you gain some experience … Read more
Beer Yeast Reference Guide Deciding which beer yeast to use can sometimes be confusing. There is help though. First, take a look at other recipes online or in books. Much of the time they will use the same yeast, and for a good reason. It may have come from the same origin as the beer … Read more
Yeast Starter Procedure and Equipment to Make Better Beer at Home A yeast starter will insure that your beer has the best possible chance of turning out well. You will need to build one: For beers with a original gravity above 1.045, For yeast that is of questionable quality, For every lager, For every high … Read more
Yeast Viability and vitality are related, but they are not the same. Yeast batches can be found with high levels of dead cells that still show very high fermentation performance (vitality, e.g., often with batches from fermentations with higher temperatures), as well as batches with very high viability but with very poor fermentation performance (e.g., storage … Read more
Washing yeast makes sense to most homebrewers. Yeast is one of the most important ingredients in your beer, and sometimes one of the most expensive. If you must purchase a new packet or vial of yeast for each beer you make it gets expensive. One way to reduce costs is to reuse your yeast. If … Read more