Does anybody know if there is a difference between wyeast beer nutrient blend and white labs yeast nutrient wln1000? I bought both and typically use the wyeast brand.
Just curious.
Neither one is necessary. So from that standpoint, there is no difference.
I partially and politely disagree, Dave. Neither is necessary, but both are helpful, in that zinc is deficient in most worts, at least in a form yeast can assimilate. (Most of the potentially available zinc remains in the spent grain, a little in the hot break material, very little in wort.) Sufficient zinc makes a real difference, IME, in reducing lag time and fermentation time, improving attenuation and flocculation, and even foam quality. The one proprietary nutrient that differs from the other two mentioned is Servomyces, which is just yeast hulls grown on a zinc rich medium, so it really ONLY supplies zinc. But it costs an arm and a leg. So if only for the zinc content, one of the others (which I’d bet are quite similar, probably yeast hulls plus trace minerals) is cheap insurance for good yeast performance. Especially if you want multiple generations of good performance. So, long story short, since all you really might need is zinc, and both wln1000 and
WY nut will have it, no significant difference. (I use WY. I see no difference in results between it and Servomyces, probably because everything but the zinc is unnecessary.)
One difference is the price. At the store where I shop the Wyeast is $2.99 for 1.5 oz and the White Labs is $7.99 for 1 oz, and both say to use 1/2 tsp for 5 gallons. That is a factor of 4 difference in price per oz.
I believe it was in a recent Beersmith podcast that John Palmer mentioned that yeast nutrient may be useful in maintaining yeast health if you are repitching. Kinda made sense to me so I started adding nutrient every third generation, I usually go 8 or 9 generations then figure I got my money’s worth and start over.
I consider it cheap insurance. I add Wyeast nutrient to every starter and batch.
While including yeast nutrient is debatable when working with many natural tap waters, it becomes more necessary when dealing with distilled and RO water sources that have had their micronutrients stripped.
With that being said, I brew with RO and I frequently forget to add the yeast nutrient. So I guess I’m saying that using it is still debatable. (I should stop debating this and just remember to always use it!!!)
In case you’re interested, below is what’s in the Wyeast nutrient blend.
Per 1/2 teaspoon in 5 gallons:
Calcium 0.696 ppb
Magnesium 0.928 ppm
Sulfate 13.920 ppm
Zinc 0.635 ppm
Manganese 0.567 ppm
Thiamine 0.241 ppm
The yeast love that zinc.
Thanks for the breakdown, narcout. As I suspected, the zinc is the only thing in there that looks significant, but it’s just the right amount. And way cheaper to get it than with Servomyces.
I believe those concentrations are for the constituents in the dry product and not for their resulting concentrations in water or wort. The zinc and manganese content would be rather metallic tasting if they exist in the water or wort.
I converted the volumetric dosing to a weight based one a while back for inclusion in my personal spreadsheet so I could track the Sulfate content.
Take this with a grain of salt but I estimated the content as follows:
US Standard: 0.44 g/gal
Metric: 0.12 g/l
I have always read it as those concentrations are produced by dosing with 1/2 tS in 5 gallons. By converting to weight based, you make it scale able.
Wyeast specifies the dosage by weight as 2.2g/5gal(19L).
There you go! Wish i would have seen that before I converted but good to know it lines up.