Dronfieldbrewer
Landlord.
ScottM said:robbarwell said:Dennis,
the reason why brewers use live yeast is just time really...A good quality brewers yeast from a brewery will be very very viable. It kicks off very quickly thus saving time and possible infections. It finishes off quickly and drops out of suspension quickly. Brewers do not have the time nor the space for batches of beer to be sat on chill awaiting the yeast to drop out prior to finings.
What brewers find is that a new strain of yeast added to their brewery will take a number of brews to be "bedded into" the brewery, if they use a dried yeast, say US05, top cropped and reused then the 3rd generation onwards would be better for them to use than the first generation.
Abbeydale brewery in Sheffield has 5 fermenters, they brew 5 times per week and have separate fridges to keep each batch of yeast separate. the yeast strain is the same across the board (a unique blend of yeasts formulated for them), This lessens the risk of cross infections and keeps the yeast fresh.
So is it basically just a huge starter? Where rather than 10 billion cells being pitched, 100 billion are instead being pitched.. lowering infection, changing sugar to alcohol is a breeze, no need to worry about them multiplying before getting started etc?
Basically like buying a vial of white labs, only instead of using one... you use 10? lol.
not really, it is possible to overpitch...what you have is very hungry and healthy yeasts that start munching straight away