Yeast health is critically important for building a successful brewing operation. It not only supports consistent, high-quality beer production, but also drives financial performance through shorter tank residency times, fewer off-target batches, and increased generational re-pitching of yeast cultures. We will explore what yeast health actually means, how to monitor it, and the key fermentation…
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What Are The Improvements To Fermentation With Zinc? Zinc promotes proper fermentation speed, attenuation, yeast health at the end of fermentation, and yeast's ability to perform faster hop creep. It also brings a better uptake of diacetyl and less acetaldehyde production. Can Yeast Ferment Without Zinc? Yeast can ferment without optimal zinc, so it’s very…
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“Yeast cells need 100% of their essential vitamins and minerals (nutrients) to make it through a fermentation properly nourished and to be ready to work again another day, much the same way humans do.” At White Labs, we do countless experiments on nutrient levels, especially FAN (Free Amino Nitrogen). Yeast needs sufficient nitrogen to carry…
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From the beginning, White Labs has focused on high cell counts, high viability, and high strain diversity. In 1995, we coined the term “pitchable” as a way to bring a new type of liquid yeast into homebrewing and integrated into our strain numbers (WLP = White Labs Pitchable). The term ‘starters’ originated before White Labs,…
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Yeast has a complex nutritional requirement. Conversion of wort sugar to alcohol is not just one chemical reaction. Hundreds of chemical reactions occur inside a yeast cell. A yeast cell can be thought of as a “bag of enzymes”. Each enzyme catalyzes a different chemical reaction. Each enzyme also has specific mineral requirements for optimum…
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Fermenting a High Gravity beer is always challenging endeavor due to high levels of alcohol, which are toxic to yeast cells, and monstrous amounts of sugars for the yeast to consume. This can lead to stuck fermentations, fusel alcohol off-flavors, and other problems. We dug deeper into brewing a >25 Plato beer to find out…
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Free Amino Nitrogen (FAN) is a critical parameter in beer analysis that leads to healthy fermentation, and, thus better beer quality. It is a measure of the concentration of amino acids and small peptides that are essential for yeast metabolism. In simpler terms, it indicates the amount of food available for yeast, helping them convert…
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Oxygen is something brewers inevitably want to minimize in their process, with one exception: wort oxygenation. In other aspects of beer production, oxygen causes detrimental effects on flavor and stability, but the opposite is true in the early phases of fermentation. Yeast depends on oxygen to provide them with the building blocks needed to synthesize…
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The Next Generation The Next Generation of PurePitch® is finally here with key advancements to make your brew day easier. One of the most important is that PurePitch® is NOW AT 2X THE PITCH! Why Care About Pitch Rates In our decades of research and working with brewing partners, we know that having a precise…
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On the Streets with White Labs As a bunch of beer geeks with roots in homebrewing, we decided to take to the streets and geek out at one of our favorite LHBS. A sunny spring day led White Labs Education & Engagement Curator Jo Doyle to Asheville Brewers Supply to talk shop with homebrewers picking…
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The Stressful Life of Brewers Yeast Think back to last summer, that hot day of yard work breaking a sweat and quenching your thirst with that satisfying blond ale. How was that beer created? What ingredients and processes went into crafting its perfect balance and complex flavors? The yeast used to ferment that beer had…
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