I’m gonna brew a bitter today. US-05 is my good ole’ go to yeast. Quite honestly, my palate cannot pick out big differences in yeast. Yet. So, I just stick with 05, because I know it. I’ll have an OG of 1038, so I am just going to pitch one pack. I’ve nver rehydrated before, but after to listening to some old “Sunday Session” podcasts, I think I am going to try it, and form my own opinion on he idea of it. Worst that can happen, is I make beer. 
I sprinkle it right on top of the wort. I have good success with it. I know alot of folks rehydrate and have good results as well. I don’t know if it makes any difference.
Rehydrate away if you want to, but be careful with the temp. Dan Listermann said years ago that he advised his customers to skip rehydration becasue so many of them were killing the yeast by using too high a temp.
Good to know Denny. I will definitely watch that. I figure I should at least try rehydrating once for myself. For no other reason than to say I did it, and can ell everyone else not to. ;D
Hey, that’s just the way I did it! 
Thanks Tom! I was about to start Googling that. You saved me!
It’s funny, I always rehydrated when using US-05, but tried it in my house APA not rehydrated. Went down to exactly the same FG, so I probably will never do it again. I just find that stopping to boil some water, chill it and rehydrate yeast was kind of a PIA anyway, and if skippng that made no difference, then what the heck.
I am a sprinkler too, but I picked up a good tip from george schmidt on how to rehydrate with ease:
take an unopened bottle of water at room temp, open it, pour half of it out add your yeast, cap and swirl. its sanitary, quick and easy and makes a nice pitching/pouring vessel.
I did that the 2 times I tried rehydrating, but I wasn’t convinced it did anything different so I went back to my sprinkling method.
Welcome to the world of the Pragmatic Brewer!
I hate it when you use the word “pragmatic”. I think we have discussed this before. :-\
I seem to have a shorter lag time when I rehydrate yeast. Maybe its just in my head :
Maybe, maybe not…I guess I figure my lag is short enough without rehydrating. In reality, I haven’t noticed a whole lot of difference between a 2 hour lag and a 24 hour lag.
Except for…well…22 hours.
?
That was the difference between a 24, and a 2 hour lag time. (insert your own rim shot here)
well. Denny, it gives me peace of mind… 
Hey, I get it now that I’ve had some sleep!
To each is own…
LOL that’s a riot.
Hydrator here. Seems my beer got better when I started doing it. No appreciable diff in lag times though. I think at least some of that involves temp and gravity.