I’ve been having problems with my liquid yeasts not attenuating properly. I live overseas and it takes up to 10 days for packages to arrive. Could the extensive time exposed to non-refrigerated temps be causing my problems? I just made two beers this weekend - one with a liquid yeast and the other with a dry yeast. The dry yeast is blowing the top off my plastic fermentor. The liquid yeast (after 12 hours on the stir plate) is struggling to make more a bubble every four seconds after 24 hours.
You mention the liquid yeast is on the stir plate, but then say you made the beers this weekend. So it sounds like you’ve pitched the yeast to your beer?
You probably can’t do much to speed up the delivery, so I’d certainly suggest doing starters if you’re not doing that already. Having a stir plate makes it sound like you do starters… if not, you should.
To clarify, I made an IPA and Red Ale and added the two different yeasts on Saturday (IPA liquid yeast & Red Ale a dry yeast). The dry yeast is bubbling madly in the fermentor… the liquid is barely going. However, my main concern is would the lag time in receiving the the liquid yeast (in this case WLP-001) cause attenuation problems? As I mentioned, it sometimes take 10 working days for packages to get to me here in Seoul, South Korea. I’m thinking that the time it takes the yeast to get to me in the mail has caused the yeast to activate.
I think your concerns are valid - I mean, in those 10 days who knows to what temperatures the yeast have been subjected? The dry yeast will better tolerate the elevated temps, while the liquid yeast will die off to some extent. You should definitely be making starters with your liquid yeasts, probably even larger starters than would otherwise seem appropriate. I doubt you want to get into viability staining or anything like that, but you should just start making larger and larger starters until you get an appropriate lag time for the beer you’re making. Or switch to dry yeast only.
I’ve never used dry yeast before this weekend, but this experience (so far) has been a good one. I didn’t even rehydrate it… just sprinkled it in my wort and mixed it up for one minute exactly. My only concern is for flavor… is dry yeast as flavorful. I make a lot of IPA’s and Stouts - my favorites. Any insights on the flavor contrast between dry and liquid yeasts?
I’ve found US-05 and S-04 to be good yeasts. The 05 is pretty clean, the 04 has a nice English character and floccs better than the 05. I haven’t use any of the dry lager or Belgian yeasts, but someone around here probably has . . .
I find the US-05, WY1056, and WLP001 to all be very similar, and I think others do too. They are supposed to be from the same source, so that makes sense.
I’ve seen that page… the Korean brewing page. It is mostly for the local Korean populace and not military or the ex-pat community here. The website I go to is HomebrewKorea.com. This site is run by a Canadian friend of mine… and huge IPA fan. There are a lot of us western homebrewers here that have been trying to create a groundswell of support for good beer. Beers here are so pathetic that it makes me sad, mad, and glad that I know how to make my own beer. The problem here in Korea is that there are very few homebrew suppliers. On top of that, the Koreans tax imported grain (280%) and yeast… and just about everything else sent here astronomically. Regarding yeast, the two homebrew stores I know of in Seoul stock White Labs yeast. But they face the same issue I face, a long voyage to get here. So buying from them at two or three times the price is crazy for me. Luckily I can order supplies from online stores and have them sent to me via APO (Army Post Office) and avoid the taxes. That’s not to say that ordering a bag of 55-lb pale malt is cheap. After the shipping, I pay around $75. As I’ve told people before, Korea is a barren wasteland for a beer lover. I’m sure there are worse places, but I know of none personally. There is not one IPA sold either on base or on the local economy. Pedestrian Euro beers are the rage… painfully putrid and boring. But there is a new place opening that promises to make their own beers… even seasonals… that are more like US-style beers… CraftworksTaphouse. I know the owner of the brewery that will supply the beers. He claims that the government requires a brewer to submit a recipe to some kind of government board and that beers over 5.5% ABV have to go through additional requirements. Anyway, before I get too depressed, I’ll stop rambling.
Hrm. APO you say. Have you looked at ordering from the UK? It’s a shorter hop I think, in terms of shipping, no? If so, perhaps you could find somebody at an English station to go buy the stuff in the shop and ship it APO to APO? Just a thought.
I think I’m going to go the dry yeast route for a while and see how that works. The west coast of the US is about a 13 hour plane flight. I don’t think England is much shorter. I really hate the Korean beer scene!!!
I have gone to using dry yeast on a lot of my beers just for the convenience. The lager yeast W23/70 (?) is nice, gives off a little sulphur which I think makes it more authentic. I keep US-05 on hand too. I haven’t found the wheat beer yeast to be very distinctive, with little to no clove or banana.
I have had numerous problems with liquid yeast shipped to the UK from the US via commercial means. At least one batch that I bought through a UK supplier sat in customs for 3 weeks.
The only vaguely reliable way is to bring it in your bags, or have someone bring it to you.
If you are in the UK, and ordering from there, and prepared to make a starter, you can get slants from Brewlab in Sunderland. They might have a better shelf life unrefrigerated.
