So todays brew session went great until I pitched my yeast, BRY97. 4 pkg’s. 2 with a 3/21 exp. and 2 with a 1/23 exp. I cut open the 2 (1/23 exp) together and started to sprinkle onto the wort and the yeast was very dark, nothing that I have ever noticed before. Added the other 2 and they were typical in color. All pkg’s were factory vacuum sealed, nice and tight. Afterwards I smelled the pkg that was brown in color and it had a different smell to it, not your typical yeasty aroma. I am afraid that the yeast is tainted and it’s going to ruin the beer.
Has anyone experienced this with BRY97 or any yeast for that matter?
Lalbrew evidently changed something in their process or additive package some time back. I, as well as others in various forums have commented on the color over the past months. I can assure you that the yeast is just fine, although it would have been nice to have had some kind of notification.
I’ve brewed 4 batches with BRY-97 that was a milk chocolate color and they all fermented normally and turned out just fine. As I posted earlier, the yeast is just fine. Others have reported the same color in different Lalbrew strains and saw no ill effects.
If you want verification from the horse’s mouth, I suggest you contact Lalbrew.
I’ve brewed 4 batches with BRY-97 that was a milk chocolate color and they all fermented normally and turned out just fine. As I posted earlier, the yeast is just fine. Others have reported the same color in different Lalbrew strains and saw no ill effects.
If you want verification from the horse’s mouth, I suggest you contact Lalbrew.
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Thanks for your email. I would not say that BRY-97 is inherently darker in any significant way. There may sometimes be changes in color are due to variation in the molasses raw materials we use to propagate the yeast. There can be strain specific differences as well. This does not affect the performance of the yeast as each production lot is tested extensively after production and again after packaging. We do test fermentations and sensory for each lot to confirm proper kinetics and flavor.
Occasionally you may also see a salt and pepper color in the yeast, i.e. some darker particles mixed with some lighter particles. This is due to variation in one drying batch to another, which are then blended together prior to packaging. This does not affect the performance, but we have decided to tighten our QC to avoid this anyway since we receive many questions about it and we did not want people to be having any doubts.
Rest assured that the yeast is not burned. One of the greatest advantages for dry yeast is that it is so stable, so we can do many more tests, and re-test if necessary to ensure only the highest quality yeast is put on the market.
If you have any other questions, just let me know.
Cheers,
Eric Abbott, M.Sc.
Global Technical Advisor
Lallemand Brewing - #WeBrewWithYou
Reassuring news! Thanks for posting. I did search online about it and found similar posts pertaining to color variations and also reassurances that their beers came out w/o issues.
Looking forward to finding out my self in about 3 weeks!!
Good timing with this question/thread. I opened two sachets of BRY-97 yesterday and also noticed the atypical color. They were both dark gray, vs. the usual light tan. Also smelled unusual, which I realize now must have been the molasses. I too was wondering if the yeast were still good. Pitched them anyway and fermentation kicked off just fine. I was glad to see this thread this morning. Many thanks to BrewBama/Dwain for adding that email from Lallemand!
