Home brew ingredients are easily sold online and shipped to the brewer pretty much anywhere in the country. What happens when the yeast is shipped in an ice pack but it takes a couple extra days to get to the brewer, and maybe even gets warm?
Even as an experienced brewer I would be hesitant to spend a whole day brewing and pitch a vial of yeast that has already died...
Well, this is where making a yeast starter comes in handy, but there are many more reasons why we want to do a yeast starter.
I realize many of the kits sold online will come with a dry yeast pack and a common idea that gets into the brewer's head at times is whether or not they should pitch the liquid and the dry yeast just to be safe. Wouldn't that be a yeast overdose?.... yeah maybe... it depends...
Here's the deal, when you first pitch yeast into wort, the yeast will adapt to the environment. Remember that they will live off of the sugars in the wort and that's all that dry malt extract really is. That is their food, their source of energy. They will live, grow and reproduce. That's a keyword in here, yeast will reproduce and multiply themselves during the first few hours or even couple of days.
So if you buy yeast online and are afraid that the vial may be spoiled then by making a yeast starter you can first off see if they yeast will reproduce and grow... and you can also make a big starter to make the yeast multiply and get back to the cell count that you need to pitch in your actual beer.
A yeast starter is nothing more than a mini version of the recipe you are about to make. You add about half a cup of dry malt extract per pint of water and pitch the yeast into it. It will start to ferment within 12 hours and that's about the perfect time to pitch the yeast starter into your beer, when the yeast are active and growing. It's like moving up to a larger home once the family grows...
Now, what happens if you were to pitch both the liquid and the dry yeast packets into a batch of beer. Well first of all, different yeast strains will give your beer different flavors. So if you are attempting to clone a beer, your beer will not come out with the actual flavor that you expect.
Also, yeast are living creatures and if you throw too many of them into an environment where there is a lack of resources (food, space, etc.), the yeast will stress out and create more by-products. Then again, if you were to do the opposite and under pitch yeast, that would be like being born with all the resources in the world. With all the food available, the yeast won't worry about working harder than they have to and will just eat the easiest sugars to eat, but won't touch more complex sugars that require work in order to be eaten.
So pitching rates should find that sweet spot in which yeast have enough food so they don't have to fight over it, but also have enough yeast so there is no abundance of resources and they don't fully ferment your beer.
When you make a yeast starter you are pitching yeast into what should be that sweet spot and you are training your yeast to go to work. So by the time you pitch the starter into your beer, they will ferment the beer fully and you'll reduce the amount of fruity esters which will give you a cleaner, crisper beer.
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