Is Your Yeast Late For Work?
Obviously, making your own beer would not be possible without yeast of some form. Hundreds of years ago, wild yeast were used and reused. Today, we are fortunate to have many choices of relatively pure cultured yeast.
For the first several years that I homebrewed beer, I gave little thought to my yeast. I simply took whatever package of yeast had been supplied in my beer kit and pitched it directly into the cooled wort. It didn't occur to me that different types of yeast might lend different flavors to the beer or that it might be desirable to have the yeast begin working sooner rather than later. Sometimes, several days passed before I saw signs of yeast fermentation. I know better now.
Many homebrewers say that they noticed marked improvements after switching from dry yeast to liquid yeast. I will say that my beer did begin to taste "different" after I switched from dry yeast. The type of yeast that you choose does impart unique flavors to your beer. Some yeast ferment dry and neutral. Others provide fruity notes, while others leave the beer with residual sweetness.
But the biggest quality improvement in my beer occurred when I began to take lag time seriously. I had always noted an off-taste in my homebrewed beers no matter what yeast I used. Some of my friends who homebrewed told me that what I was tasting was normal. That's what homebrewed beer tastes like, they said. But homebrewed beer doesn't have to have that homebrewed taste that was bothering me.
Lag time is the time that elapses between the cooling of the wort and the commencement of active fermentation by the yeast. This is the time that wild strains of yeast, bacteria and other nasties have the prime opportunity to start up populations in your beer. Wild yeast and bacteria contribute and are often responsible for the "off flavors" in homebrewed beer. Lag times longer than eight hours are potentially troublesome.
Once your cultured yeast begins to increase its population, the yeast will fight for survival and supremacy, crowding out the unwanted nasties. The trick is to give your cultured yeast the best conditions to thrive and survive.
One of the fastest ways to get your yeast to work is to use an uncontaminated yeast cake from a previous batch (See my previous article, "Happy Birthday to Me: A Yeast Cake").
What if you don't have a viable yeast cake laying around? Then you need to make a yeast starter. For years, I never made starters. And I only had one badly infected batch the entire time. However, the fact that my beer was still drinkable doesn't mean that it was as good as it could have been. And that bothers me. Gallons and gallons of beer that never reached its full potential. Sigh.
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