On Mon, Jan 20, 2003 at 02:29:06PM +0100, Carsten Kaasgaard wrote: > Hvor meget g?r skal der bruges til ca. 4 liter ?l ???
4 liters is a pretty small batch. I think most of us make over 15 liters at a time, or more (some up to 60 liters!). Anyway, the amount of yeast is not horribly important. It depends a lot on what kind of yeast you are using. The more you add, the faster the yeast gets a good hold of the wort, and the less time there is for other backteria and wild yeasts to start working on it. That means less risk of infection and other surprises. Of course there is an upper limit, but it is pretty high up. Remember that the first thing the yeast does, is to make much more yeast! Dry yeasts come in small packets, I think there is 7 grams in each. They are pretty potent yeasts, a packet is quite sufficient for a 20 liter batch. If I knew I'd be brewing more beer soon, I'd use half a packet. If I had any doubts about that, I'd put the whole packet in. Liquid yeasts (wyeast) come in much smaller quantities, but are much better quality stuff. You need to "smack" a packet a few days before brewing, so as to mix the yeast culture with the starter inside the packet. Then the packet grows for a few days, while the yeast multiplies in the sterile starter wort. When the packet has built enough pressure in it, you can see that it is ready. Usually you are supposed to make a half-liter starter from such a pack, although some people get away without. For a 4-liter batch I would use one packet of wyeast directly, without making any starters, as the extra step always carries a slight risk of infection. I have once experimented with baking yeast (both dry and block). It can be used, but the results are not very interesting. Since it comes from the booze factories, it is likely to be fairly aggressive and effective yeast that can survive relatively high alcohol percentages. But it has not been bred to give any good taste or anything else we would expect from beer... I hope this answers it all. I am sure others on this list are more than willing to step in and correct if I have made any mistakes, or if they just don't agree with me... Relax, don't worry, have a homebrew! -Heikki -- Heikki Levanto [EMAIL PROTECTED] "In Murphy We Turst"
