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My first three kits I purchased from noble grape they came with dry yeast. But doing some reading a lot of people use liquid yeast and reuse it. Does anyone have a good link for the procedure of reusing your yeast, also is it recommended to reuse your liquid yeast or just stick with dry yeast? Seemed to be mixed opinions on other sites about using liquid or dry yeast.

For the brews I do, I use mostly dry yeast, but I do love the difference a good liquid yeast provides.
In lagers, it gives a more "crisp" flavour profile to me from that of dry yeast, although I do use more dry
yeast for lagers than liquid. What can I say... I'm cheap.

TonyL: Even cheaper would be washing and re-using!

Both dry and liquid yeast can be re-used, Jimmy's link has some great info.
Starters are something that either yeast delivery style can benefit from. That way you are pitching the correct (or at least, a known) amount of yeast to your wort. You can also take small slurries of your starter and keep for the next beer, for it's next starter.

RANT: The oft-overlooked truth (IMO) is that yeast makes up a very significant part of the beer's character, so proper pitching rate and fermentation temperature is the easiest way to improve your beer. Most flaws in beer are because the yeast is not happy (too sweet, too dry, off flavours/aromas).

chalmers wrote: Starters are something that either yeast delivery style can benefit from. That way you are pitching the correct (or at least, a known) amount of yeast to your wort.

Basic brewing radio and Brew your own magazine just did a study on the effects of dry pitching vs pitching a starter. The results were inconclusive and from what I understand generally favored the dry pitch. They suggested this was because there was one less step causing stress on the yeast, however who knows what condition those "experiments" were conducted under. I still like the taste of my beer when I have a good healthy starter vs. the times I have been in a pinch or have F'ed up the starter and had to pitch dry.

On a similar note (although maybe not relevant) my best beer to date was when I thought I killed a starter and re-pitched some of Andy's yeast into my starter (same 1056 strain, different generation) and it came out with a really great unique taste unlike anything I have done from a first generation 1056. So that was a semi-three pitch situation (2x in the starter and then into the wort). Obviously the extra stress worked for me. I saved the yeast and hope to retain whatever it is that made it so tasty.

chalmers wrote:Most flaws in beer are because the yeast is not happy (too sweet, too dry, off flavours/aromas).

Ironically, keeping it too happy can be equally bad. I remember a talk by one of the yeast biologists at the Viticultural Institute in St. Catharines, about making wine with absolutely perfect nutrients for the yeast - and getting very little flavor. When yeast is given everything it needs to convert sugar to alcohol, it does a very good job and produces very few by-products - and consequently, very little flavor. So it's always a tap-dance, but it's easier to err on the side of too many by-products than too few.

chalmers wrote:TonyL: Even cheaper would be washing and re-using!
).

Yup, done my share of reusing yeast both liquid and dry.

Here's a video of how you harvest the leftover yeast from your fermenter.

so at the end of the video Jimmy posted, there's four little jars with a distinct line where you can see the yeast at the bottom... am I right in thinking that you pour off the dark liquid on top and use the yeast at the bottom in your starter?

bluenose wrote:so at the end of the video Jimmy posted, there's four little jars with a distinct line where you can see the yeast at the bottom... am I right in thinking that you pour off the dark liquid on top and use the yeast at the bottom in your starter?

Yes - You will probably need a bit of the liquid though so you can swirl it up and pour it out.

how much of those jars do you guys use to make a starter?

I was just wondering one more thing, do you have to make a starter? or can you just use the stuff right out of the jars?

If the yeast is stored for more than a few days, its best to do a starter, just to revitalize if nothing else. It also confirms the yeast is still working.

I have done quite a bit of yeast washing. You only need one jar to make a starter but what I do is make 3 doses of dry malt thus priming it up 3 times. You have to be ultra sanitary though. This method makes a nice sized starter with plenty of yeast cells.