Organic Yeast

[soggydog]

Does anyone know of a good supplier of organic yeast?
I’m looking to move over to organic brewing.
Cheers
Mike

 

[Drunkula]

The malt miller. The Imperial yeasts are organic. Dried yeasts have E491. You could make a huge starter and rebuild from it - I'd still consider it organic if you were using organic medium to grow it in because if you thought of the E491 as not organic it would be diluted exponentially on each build.

 

[soggydog]

The malt miller. The Imperial yeasts are organic. Dried yeasts have E491. You could make a huge starter and rebuild from it - I'd still consider it organic if you were using organic medium to grow it in because if you thought of the E491 as not organic it would be diluted exponentially on each build.

Thanks! Very much appreciated.
I’d looked at these as they came top of a search but couldn’t find the word ‘organic’. Do you know if it is quoted anywhere?

 

[divrack]

I reckon if you can't call fresh yeast organic you can't call anything organic. still the imperial stuff is good. pricey but you don't need to make a starter generally as there is lots. pretty sure they just took a bunch of popular strains though and packaged them up 'organically' with different names.

 

[dan125]

It is certified organic.
I was really impressed with the Juice strain so am gonna give this one a whirl at the weekend.
The Juice strain is meant to be the same as wyeast London III but it behaved quite differently when I used it.

 

[MyQul]

I'm surprised you didnt see that imperial yeast was organic, it's all over the site and mentions the word in the google hit.

From the imperial site

"Isn’t all yeast “organic”?
That depends on what you mean by organic. All Imperial Yeast products are USDA Certified Organic by Oregon Tilth. Therefore, we cannot use synthetic chemicals, GMO sugars, petroleum-based chemicals, and other unnatural ingredients to grow the yeast you are using in your beer."

Therefore, once you take any commercial yeast and regrow the cells in an organic starter, wouldnt it turn the yeast organic?

 

[soggydog]

I reckon if you can't call fresh yeast organic you can't call anything organic. still the imperial stuff is good. pricey but you don't need to make a starter generally as there is lots. pretty sure they just took a bunch of popular strains though and packaged them up 'organically' with different names.

Cheers!
These 2 posts have convinced me to start with Imperial but may change down the line. I’m hoping to set up on an organic farm so need to be able to convince the owner it’s organic.

 

[divrack]

a lot of

Cheers!
These 2 posts have convinced me to start with Imperial but may change down the line. I’m hoping to set up on an organic farm so need to be able to convince the owner it’s organic.

their '''juice" would be a good place to start. it's supposed to be wyeast London ale III, great for malt sweetness in English ale styles and fantastic for neipa juicy hop forward styles also.

 

[-Bezza-]

Personally, I'm not sure I would worry too much about sourcing "organic" yeast unless you were trying to sell your beer as organic, and therefore needed certification.

To sell something as organic, it needs to have certification but that doesn't mean something that doesn't have certification isn't naturally organic; it might just mean it hasn't bothered with the extra expense of getting organic certification. I'm not sure homebrew yeast would justify that outlay in normal circumstances, so it could well be that most yeasts are organic but they aren't allowed to say organic on the label. To a large extent, organic is just a modern-day racket - you pay to be able to sell your products for a premium!

Dried yeasts might be a safer bet as even where the yeast is not truly organic, I wonder how much concern there would really be over the infinitesimally small amount of non-organic material that would make itself into the final beer?

 

[MyQul]

Personally, I'm not sure I would worry too much about sourcing "organic" yeast unless you were trying to sell your beer as organic, and therefore needed certification.

To sell something as organic, it needs to have certification but that doesn't mean something that doesn't have certification isn't naturally organic; it might just mean it hasn't bothered with the extra expense of getting organic certification. I'm not sure homebrew yeast would justify that outlay in normal circumstances, so it could well be that most yeasts are organic but they aren't allowed to say organic on the label. To a large extent, organic is just a modern-day racket - you pay to be able to sell your products for a premium!

Dried yeasts might be a safer bet as even where the yeast is not truly organic, I wonder how much concern there would really be over the infinitesimally small amount of non-organic material that would make itself into the final beer?

Never having interest in organically produced products before , the OP intrigued me. So doing a bit of googling, it seems the drying or reproduction of of the cell processes can use various chemical which arent considered organic. As I have mooted aboved, if you then re-grow brand new cells in organic starter from a non-organic source, does it then make the yeast organic (if I dont get a satisfactory answer here, I think I may ask the question on our sister site HBT which is a lot bigger than THB, and also email Imperial Yeasts)

I can understand the OP's question, if he wants to sell organic beer, he will need organic certificates. If the beer is just for himself, he may have health or ethical objections to non-organic ingredients

 

[divrack]

Personally, I'm not sure I would worry too much about sourcing "organic" yeast unless you were trying to sell your beer as organic, and therefore needed certification.

it can be funny. kind of like how ticktacks could call themselves low calorie and sugar free because individually they were small enough to qualify for that category despite being like a hundred percent sugar..
it's annoying because I really value good farming practice and organic principles but it's hard to differentiate with the blanket naming racket.

 

[-Bezza-]

Never having interest in organically produced products before , the OP intrigued me. So doing a bit of googling, it seems the drying or reproduction of of the cell processes can use various chemical which arent considered organic. As I have mooted aboved, if you then re-grow brand new cells in organic starter from a non-organic source, does it then make the yeast organic (if I dont get a satisfactory answer here, I think I may ask the question on our sister site HBT which is a lot bigger than THB, and also email Imperial Yeasts)

I can understand the OP's question, if he wants to sell organic beer, he will need organic certificates. If the beer is just for himself, he may have health or ethical objections to non-organic ingredients

It's definitely an interesting question and I'm certainly not trying to question the validity of the question, merely provide an alternative perspective. In the context of a 23l brew with 5kg grain, I wouldn't sweat the 11g of dried yeast of which a tiny, tiny percentage will be nasties. But then it's not me who's asking the question!

I'm curious as to the answer.

 

[-Bezza-]

it can be funny. kind of like how ticktacks could call themselves low calorie and sugar free because individually they were small enough to qualify for that category despite being like a hundred percent sugar..
it's annoying because I really value good farming practice and organic principles but it's hard to differentiate with the blanket naming racket.

I was visiting an organic farm a little while ago - one that is really passionate about sustainable farming practices and removing nasty chemicals from farming - and they were saying that they were really frustrated with the organic rules because they missed the point. There were organically-certified pesticides and fertilisers that they refused to use because they felt they were more harmful than the non-organic equivalents. But I guess the organic movement has at least achieved something and opened our eyes slightly to the chemicals that were so prevalent in foods 15 years ago.

 

[MyQul]

This is in Canada, I'm not sure about here

"To call it “organic beer,” at least 95 percent of the ingredients must be certified organic."

"Most beers are made from four ingredients: water, malted grains (mainly barley), hops, and yeast. Water (which is exempt from organic certification) and barley make up more than 95 percent of most beer recipes, so an organic beer can be brewed without organic hops or yeast."

https://www.alive.com/lifestyle/make-organic-beer/

Therefore (in canada at least) you dont need organic yeast to make organic beer

 

[-Bezza-]

This is in Canada, I'm not sure about here

"To call it “organic beer,” at least 95 percent of the ingredients must be certified organic."

"Most beers are made from four ingredients: water, malted grains (mainly barley), hops, and yeast. Water (which is exempt from organic certification) and barley make up more than 95 percent of most beer recipes, so an organic beer can be brewed without organic hops or yeast."

https://www.alive.com/lifestyle/make-organic-beer/

Therefore (in canada at least) you dont need organic yeast to make organic beer

And the main ingredient - water - doesn't need to have certification!!

 

[MyQul]

I was visiting an organic farm a little while ago - one that is really passionate about sustainable farming practices and removing nasty chemicals from farming - and they were saying that they were really frustrated with the organic rules because they missed the point. There were organically-certified pesticides and fertilisers that they refused to use because they felt they were more harmful than the non-organic equivalents. But I guess the organic movement has at least achieved something and opened our eyes slightly to the chemicals that were so prevalent in foods 15 years ago.

You see this all the time, in a variety of spheres. A group has some good intentions they want to implement. It's picked up by a governing body, who implement some rules/laws but the rules/laws are so constrictive and binding they undermine the original good intention

 

[simon12]

This reminds me of when I briefly worked at a place that made concentrated food flavourings and colourings and vanalin the main component in vanilla flavourings was £1000+ a Kg from vanilla but was £20 a Kg as a biproduct from the paper industry but not a natural product but you could extract it from cloves £60 a kg and it was a natural product. The point being you could make a natural vanilla flavour without any vanilla.
Do you need organic irish moss?

 

[MyQul]

This reminds me of when I briefly worked at a place that made concentrated food flavourings and colourings and vanalin the main component in vanilla flavourings was £1000+ a Kg from vanilla but was £20 a Kg as a biproduct from the paper industry but not a natural product but you could extract it from cloves £60 a kg and it was a natural product. The point being you could make a natural vanilla flavour without any vanilla.
Do you need organic irish moss?

I think he's planning on using polyclar

 

[soggydog]

View attachment 13970
It is certified organic.
I was really impressed with the Juice strain so am gonna give this one a whirl at the weekend.
The Juice strain is meant to be the same as wyeast London III but it behaved quite differently when I used it.

Thanks.
I’ll get an order off today.
Cheers

 

[soggydog]

This reminds me of when I briefly worked at a place that made concentrated food flavourings and colourings and vanalin the main component in vanilla flavourings was £1000+ a Kg from vanilla but was £20 a Kg as a biproduct from the paper industry but not a natural product but you could extract it from cloves £60 a kg and it was a natural product. The point being you could make a natural vanilla flavour without any vanilla.
Do you need organic irish moss?

I’m hoping this is a wind up ‘cause it never crossed my mind.
Dare I ask, is there certified organic Irish moss?
This is a minefield..,