Canadian Homebrewers here

Ingredients
1

Anyone noticed the massive price increases just in the first quarter of 2023?

Looks like the two big online homebrew retailers in Ontario have decided to switch to white labs pure pitch from the old small satchets you build up with a yeast starter. $23.99 at torontobrewing.ca. the pure pitches which seem to be replacing the small packs at OBK are 15.99 and up.

who the hell is continuing to keep up their pace of buying with price increases like this? i was getting whitelabs small packs for $9.49 in fall 2022, letting me chose a single pack for a beer to try if i wanted. and even that is higher than american prices.

sick of getting so ripped off for everything in canada, while simultaneously being worse/limited quality/selection

2

Fly to Mexico and enter the U.S. at Tijuana. Welcome!!

3

Um, that’s borderline there. In two ways.

4

You can still buy the smaller packs of White Labs yeast at OBK. Different prices for some though. Yea, the price has almost doubled. I always do an over build with every starter. Still cheaper than dry lager yeast by far. I do 5 - 6 over builds and buy another pack of yeast. I paid $12 for WLP830 last month and it is now $16. Not sure when these price increases will end. I just checked More Beer and their same yeast is $16 also, Well, with our dollar being lower than the US dollar, our yeast is 30% cheaper.

5

yeah, it just seemed like they were phasing those packs out over time. im thinking ill switch to the escarpment and give them a try., but i have enough yeast until the fall, maybe longer if i dont like the prices.

dry lager yeast was ridiculous. also torontobrewing’s prices in general are insane, who buys from them? torontoites? lmao

re: Morebeer, you cant use them up here can you?

6

If you’re willing to step up a starter a couple of times, then you can even take a bottle or a half pour off of a keg and grow up yeast off of that. I often do this if I have a batch of beer from a liquid strain that I really like and didn’t have the forethought to save some slurry from my initial pitch. Yeast is far more resiliant than we give it credit for, and if your process is clean you can grow a healthy pitch from old beer or slurry without too much issue.

7

Can I pitch fresh wort onto the trub of a lager in my fermenter? I kind of quit that many years ago, just wondering if brewers still do that.

8

I do that frequently.  Most of my best lagers have been done that way (granted, I have made fewer than 2 dozen lagers).

9

Yes you can. I have found that I get better results by only using about half the slurry.