Rehydration of kit yeast and for carbonation stage, sugar or spray malt

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Joystick
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Rehydration of kit yeast and for carbonation stage, sugar or spray malt

Post by Joystick » Sun Apr 08, 2018 12:58 pm

Just trying to gather peoples views on a couple questions please:
Is it easy/good to rehydrate a kit yeast before pitching and if it is a better way to do things how best to rehydrate the yeast?
Secondly, which is considered better, to use a sugar or spray malt for priming for secondary fermentation corbonation (in bottles)?

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Jocky
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Re: Rehydration of kit yeast and for carbonation stage, sugar or spray malt

Post by Jocky » Sun Apr 08, 2018 1:14 pm

Yes, always rehydrate dry yeast, you'll kill 50% of the viable cells otherwise.

Sprinkle the yeast in minimum 10 times its weight of boiled and cooled water or wort at 20-30c.
Leave to rest 15 to 30 minutes.
Gently stir for 30 seconds, and pitch the resultant cream into the fermentation vessel.


As for bottle priming - neither sugar nor spray malt is 'better'. I find regular white sugar easier to use and cheap. Put the sugar you need for the whole batch in a pan and boil with a little water for 10 minutes. You can then either dump the whole lot in your bottling bucket ('batch priming') or dose it into bottles individually (ideally with a syringe!).
Ingredients: Water, Barley, Hops, Yeast, Seaweed, Blood, Sweat, The swim bladder of a sturgeon, My enemies tears, Scenes of mild peril, An otter's handbag and Riboflavin.

Joystick
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Re: Rehydration of kit yeast and for carbonation stage, sugar or spray malt

Post by Joystick » Sun Apr 08, 2018 2:20 pm

Hi Jocky,
Many thanks for a super quick reply and concise instructions. I didn’t expect that! I’m not too worried about the cost of using an alternative to sugar, more interested in effective priming without altering the taste detrimentally. I have previously used carbonation drops (Coopers) directly into bottles but I think I’ll prime the whole batch as you suggest the next time. I’m waiting for glass bottles to be re-stocked in my local brew shop and when I do go and buy them I’ll invest in another FV bucket at the same time to do the priming and bottling from. At the moment I only have the one bucket. I shall add your instructions to my “database” of brewing tips. Thank you again, Cheers!

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