On Thu, Sep 02, 2004 at 12:10:24PM +0200, Søren Hjortbøl wrote: > Jeg gør det samme hver gang jeg brygger. Rehydrerer ca 1. > døgn før. Gæren æder sukkeret
I think you have two terms slightly confused here. Rehydrating means only adding water to the dry yeast. That is best done with plain (boiled, cooled) water, without sugar in it, as the cell walls of the dry yeast are not very good in controlling the amount of sugar getting into the cell. Once the cells have absorbed water and started to function normally, they will happily eat sugar. That is when you can pitch the yeast into a starter culture (of sugarwater, malt extract, whole wort, or apple juice). I seem to recall reading somewhere that rehydrating in sugar water kills up to one third of the yeast cells, so you get a more active yeast if you rehydrate in plain water first. As to starter cultures, they aren't so much needed for the dry yeasts. Liquid smack-packs certainly deserve to be started properly... Depending on your batch size, and a whole lot of other factors. -H -- Heikki Levanto heikki at indexdata dot dk "In Murphy We Turst"
