Like a lot of older brewers, I have avoided dry yeast like the plague. I maintained a yeast bank on agar slants for a long time. However, my current lifestyle does not afford me that luxury. What I have discovered that dry yeast while not exceptional on the initial pitch can be trained to under selective pressure to perform as I want. It is a situation of good enough! What is your take on dry yeast?
Im a relatively new brewer but in two years ive brewed about 75 batches of beer. And Ive tried a slew of different liquid yeasts from white labs and Wyeast and a few from Imperial. That being said Ive ventured into using Dry yeast recently, Ive started working tons of overtime the last few months and Ive noticed a few things. The brew day and the prep the night before brew day is a lot more streamlined and easier when your using dry yeast. I have never received a pack of dry yeast that has not worked or its viability was questionable. And a few of the cellar science strains particularly their sachet called Nectar was more estery and flavorful than many of the english strains I have used that were from White Labs or Wyeast. Many of those liquid strains I’ve tried in different beers at different fermentation temps and at different pitch rates.
With the huge selection available to you in this day and age why not try it? After all its just making beer at home. Hell ive even been making beer that I like with LME.
Lallemand seems to be coming out with a lot of different strains over the last two years.
I use dry as often as I can, as long as it will give the results I’m looking for. Mainly BRY-97 and Diamond lager.
I like the variety you can get with liquid yeast. But, with no local liquid yeast vendors, I usually avoid potential shipping problems and higher shipping costs and go with dry.
I like
Bry-97 for American Ales.
Mangrove Jack’s M36 for porters.
34/70 for lagers.
I am still working my way through some of the newer English alternatives (Verdant, American East Coast) and a few co-pitch options. I also need to try Diamond and S-189 again. I liked both the one time I used them.
Just a matter of what might get me where I’m hoping to go. Sometimes it’s liquid, sometimes dry. Of the dry yeasts I have used a fair amount:
BRY-97 - easily my favorite dry yeast. Very dependable, clean, usually finishes dry for me, which I prefer. So versatile as well, fits many styles.
Windsor - for English Porters, this has served me well.
S-04 - I’ve never got on well here. Always seems to be lacking something. Very ho-hum, always leaves the beer feeling a bit unfinished.
US-05 - always dependable, but no reason I’d ever pick it again over BRY-97.
Belle Saison - dependable, attenuates like nobody’s business, flavors are just ok though.
London - very solid all around, I like it in Brown Ales for giving the malt a bit of a boost.
Given the cost, reliability, ease of use, storage, and versatility…I use dry probably 75% of the time.
I think that % is about right for me, too. A majority of what I brew these days is either WCIPA, or test batches where I need dependable, reliable, predictable yeast to eliminate it as a variable when I’m testing other ingredients.
I use both. I often save and re-pitch slurries of either and tend to plan my recipe around the slurries I’ve got.
I assume that the reason there are a lot more strains available as liquid is the manufacturing infrastructure required to produce dry yeast? Or are some strains just not suited for being produced in dry form?
The two dry culture that with which I have had the best luck are BRY-97 and Diamond Lager. I have plans to try S-23.
I’m a relatively recent convert to using dry yeast almost exclusively. I was a holdout for a long time; I am one of those older brewers who remembers how bad dry yeast used to be, and the negative perception was hard to shake. But after hearing so much praise for dry yeast on this forum, I expanded my horizons. Very glad I did.
I use liquid on select occasions, namely for when I make my Mexican pale lager and hefeweizen. WLP940 doesn’t have a dry equivalent yet and Munich Classic makes awful hefeweizen.
My go-to’s are BRY-97, S-189, and 34/70–although I will be using Diamond in place of 34/70 for upcoming batches, to give it a test drive.
I used Munich Classic once in a Dunkelweizen and it was pretty rough. I assumed I fouled up the fermentation in some way, but after reading your comment, now I’m not so sure. 
Doesn’t matter I suppose because I’m unlikely to ever use it again.
Not sure you can resolve this discussion with anecdotal evidence.
There’s no recent literature I know in the subject, so it seems it’s up to the brewer.
Extremely good pro brewers have smaller lag time with liquid yeast, but for the average homebrewer out there may have more consistency with dry yeast.
It’s really a seasonal thing for me. I have been burnt purchasing liquid yeast in the warmer months after paying for shipping ice packs but they arrive fully thawed. So for that reason, I mainly only use liquid in the late fall/winter. I can get from my LHBS with no issues though.
At this point though I prefer dry yeast. Its easier and I don’t have to make a starter. I can collect the slurry after cold crash and use again and again w/o worry or add directly on top of a yeast pancake. I have used 34/70 for 11 generations w/o perceptible issues. I don’t have to worry about adding O2 prior to pitching. I mainly make lagers using 34/70, S-189, S23 and more recently Diamond Lager with what I would say are excellent results.
I’ve been using dry yeast exclusively for a cpl yrs now. Some I like and others I don’t. I use Bry-97 mostly but I use a few others like S-04, ESB, W 34/70 from time to time. I’ve never heard someone keeping liquid yeast just in case the dry yeast fails like I do the other way around. It just works every time.
I went back to using dry yeasts almost exclusively about 6 or 8 years ago and never looked back. In the past, Lallemand and Fermentis were my go to brands. About 4 years ago, I discovered Mangrove Jack’s and now, M15, M36, M42 and M44 are my staples. I do, on occasion, use Notty or BRY-97 as well and have tried several newer varieties. I brew a lot of APAs and West Coast IPAs, as well as an occasional British style, so almost never need to go with liquid to fit style.
Except for the Nottingham packaging problems several years back, my results using dry yeasts have been great. Add that to the convenience, storage stability, shelf life and price factors, and dry wins every time in my book.
I mostly use dry yeast because I’m far from a homebrew store. I’ve had good luck with the following dry yeasts: BRY-97, Diamond Lager, Windsor, 34/70, and S-189. However I greatly prefer liquid yeasts for Belgian Ales and will buy several packs when I get a chance while visiting friends. They have performed well for me. I also enjoyed the new Lallemand Philly sour yeast this summer.
I’m told it’s because there are strains that won’t survive the drying process.
The only liquid yeast that I’ve used in years was 1450 in a Wry Smile.
I’m using about 80% dry yeast at the moment. I have dry yeast strains that fill most of the slots in my toolkit, but there are a few times year where I what a specific flavor from a specific yeast. This is usually for English ales where each yeast strain has its own flavor profile, and I am generally in the mood for something specific. Windsor or Windsor/Notty works well enough if I’m not having a specific craving, but if I want the flavor profile of 1469, 1968, WLP013, etc., then there is no dry option. I’ve also enjoyed some of the newer strains that Omega has been putting out, so those are the other liquid options I use.
I don’t have a LHBS that sells liquid yeast, and most of my brew days are done on short notice. Even if I preferred liquid yeast (which isn’t necessarily the case for many of the beers I brew), the convenience of dry yeast makes it my go-to. At any given time I have at least 1 pack of BRY-97, US-05, New England IPA, S-189, 34/70 and Windsor, plus D47 and 71B for cider/mead/other. I also have packets of Diamond, Verdant IPA, and dry Lutra that I am looking forward to try soon. Times are good for dry yeast users right now.
definitely. there are even differences in survivability for liquid yeasts it seems, with people reporting that the generic expiration/production date + x months doesn’t reliably ensure survivability for some strains
yeah, i agree though. a lot of people recommend munich classic, and it sort of checks the boxes for what you’d expect in a weizen yeast, but same, unexpectedly harsh.
tbh sacch, i think there already is a thread where people throw out their fave dry yeast strains. i agree with the types repeated by many, but would add k-97.
i fermented it cool and it was a very clean yeast that had an incredibly persistent haze and made the hops pop pretty well. people label it as “german ale/kolsch/alt” whatever, but i see it as a NEIPA potential yeast or IPA. i’d love to hear recent and more feedback from people who used it well.
ive been noticing dry yeast prices slowly rising, especially the lager ones. right now at my online store W34/70 is about $8.50, this sort of negates one of the advantages of dry yeast.
https://www.ontariobeerkegs.com/lallemand-kolsch-koln.html - $7
I use dry or harvest dry almost exclusively, I don’t think I’ve brewed anything with liquid in at least 2 years. If I could get liquid yeast while it was still alive and viable there are a couple I certainly use, but it’s always dead by the time it gets here - no matter how many ice packs I pay for. US-05 and 34/70 make most of my beer but I also like BE-256 for some big beers. I did a few split ferments with 05/Bry 97 & really couldn’t tell a difference so I saw no reason to switch. I’ve also split 05 with S-04, M-44, Liberty Bell and a whole bunch of other non similar yeasts like Lallbrew Kolsch, M-15, Notty & Lallbrew London ESB, and always like the 05 beers better. Same thing with 34/70, in the splits I’ve done with S-23, S-189 and M-76, the 34/70 beers were more to my liking. I do have a package of Diamond Lager but haven’t gotten around to trying it yet.
I’d love to have a viable pack of Wy-1728 again but have given up hope of that unless and until I happen to be in a town that’s big enough to have a good LBHS.
I can’t stand sour beers so T-58, BE-135, Belle Saison and to a lesser extent K-97 did not make beers I wanted to drink. I was told recently by a pro brewer that K-97 is supposed to be a Kolsch yeast, I wonder if Dave or any of the yeast gurus would chime in on that.