How to use yeast nutrient for beer brewing

Yeast, that magnificent beast of an organism that converts sugars to alcohol, is the key to fermentation 

Fermentation itself is a fairly straightforward process but there are a lot of variables at play to ensure that you get a good tasting beer, let alone a brew that tastes like you intended!

Temperature, time, pH levels and oxygen are key factors.

An overlooked one is often yeast nutrition.

Does your beer yeast need nutrients? 

The malt in your beer is usually enough to sustain the yeast cells but in order to thrive (and thus efficiently ferment your beer wort and achieve a high attenuation) other elements such as levels of free amino nitrogen, fatty acids, and even vitamins and other minerals come into play and become factors in a successful brew. 

The truth is though, you could do a hundred brews and never need it but if you a looking for high attenuation rates (how much sugar is consumed by the yeast) or a brewing a beer with a high ABV, it may help as you need a strong yeast to achieve those two goals.  

When should I use a yeast nutrient?

You may also consider using a nutrient if your water is lacking in calcium, magnesium, and zinc as these metals. 

Zinc can help with the cell count while magnesium helps with cellular metabolism.

If your beer is using a high proportion of 'adjuncts', you'll want to consider supporting the yeast too. Sugar alone does not support the yeast so if there's a higher concentration of sugars in your beer, then a nutrient may assist yeast development. 

If you are making wine or cider or mead, you would be more likely to use nutrients as there is less for the yeast to make do with than in the malty beer wort. Honey, for instance, contains no nitrogen.

To cover some of these factors off, many home brewers choose to add yeast nutrient to their beer batch.

The other benefits of adding a yeast 'energizer' include the shortening of the 'lag phase' of fermentation can contribute to a reduction in off-flavours in beer or wine.

Yeast food may also help reduce the final gravity by invigorating the yeast pushing it to a more complete fermentation leading to a reduction of diacetyl or acetaldehyde (that apple flavour). 

There are three modes of yeast nutrition:

• Nitrogen supplements -  usually in the form of di-ammonium phosphate which is a water-soluble salt and or urea, this should be used when there's a lack of free amino nitrogen. Can be used for mead, cider, wine, and beer. Fermax and Fermaid are popular brands used by brewers as it contains the phosphate as well as magnesium sulfate and autolyzed yeast
• Yeast hulls - dead yeast of which the residue acts as a home for live yeast. Live yeast will eat the hulls and feed on the nutrients contained therein. 
• Yeast energizers are used to stimulate or restart a stalled fermentation.

Can I add yeast nutrients to my starter?

You sure can. Brewers will often add about a quarter teaspoon to their starters.

Bread bakers have been known to add it to their sourdough starters!

When should I add yeast nutrients to my brew?

It should usually be added at the start of fermentation. If you are using an energizer you will most likely be adding it when fermentation has failed or halted. 

How much yeast nutrient should I add?

Manufacturers typically recommend 1 gram per litre or 1 teaspoon for 5 litres/1 gallon. There should be instructions on the packaging.

What are Servomyces?

This is a yeast supplement produced by the famed yeast developer, White Labs. They boast that 

"Servomyces enables any yeast strain’s ability to incorporate essential nutrients into its cellular structure. It is propagated in a micronutrient rich environment and then killed off prior to packaging.  

Boiling incorporates the servomyces into the wort. The benefit of servomyces is that micronutrients, e.g., zinc are able to pass through its cell walls to your live cell yeast cell, thereby delivering the micronutrients without toxicity."

Check out what White Labs have to offer on Amazon.

So if your beer batch is short of zinc, then using Servomyces may be the right option for you. If you are doing a boil, it is recommended you add one capsule ten minutes prior to the end of the boil. If doing a kit brew, you can open the capsule up and add the Servomyces directly to the wort. 

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How to properly store and condition your bottled homebrew

Proper storage and conditioning of homebrew beer - for better tasting beer

You've done the hard work.

You've prepared a nice wort, added some hops, maybe used a yeast energizer and a beer enhancer and it fermented well. You let it ferment in the drum for a good amount of time.

Then bottling day came and you got your golden brew safely away under the cap.

Now what?

It's time to bottle condition your beer and that doesn't mean you hide it under a blanket in an old swap-a-crate box and forget about it for a few weeks. 

Well actually you can do this, but if you want great tasting beer there are a few things to think about when storing and conditioning beer. 

I'm gonna assume you bottled, left a good level of space in the bottle neck and you've capped the beer and are ready to place the beer somewhere safe. 

First with the warm and then with the cold

When you are bottle conditioning, you are adding a second addition of sugar to your beer. This is so that the second round of fermentation can take place. 

The yeast still present in the beer will eat the sugar and convert it into more alcohol and CO2 - this gas is what carbonates the beer. 

So, just like when you did the first round of fermentation, the yeast does its best work at a warm temperature. So, to properly store your beer so that it is carbonated, the beer needs to be kept warm for a few days. 

The ideal temperature range is between approx 18 - 25°C for 5 to 7 days. 

After a week or so, you can leave them in a much cooler place with a temperature range between approx 8 - 12°C. This will allow the beers to condition quite nicely. 

This thing about the correct temperature is real. 

Let me tell you a story. 

In the middle of a New Zealand winter, I bottled a lager beer and left it in the shed for about a month. It was cold and the sun didn't warm the shed at all. It was actually colder in the shed than outside. 

When I went to crack open the first beer, I did not hear that usually reassuring hiss of gas as it escapes from the bottle. 

The silence was brutal. 

My beer was flat. 

So I opened another bottle and had the same result. And again for a third.

I wondered if I had destroyed my beer somehow but then more sensibly I asked my self 'had fermentation actually occurred'?

It had.

What I had done was wrap the fermenter in plenty of old painting sheets which kept the beer warn enough to allow the first round of fermentation to occur. 

For the bottled beer, the problem was the freezing cold. They had sat in the shed naked as the day they were bottled and bitterly cold. The yeast became inactive and no fermentation occurred. 

The solution was to bring the beers inside where it was warmer.

I placed them in the living room and gradually they warmed up. After two weeks I opened a beer and boom, I was rewarded with the sound of CO2 releasing from the beer. The yeast had appreciated the warmer temperature, came out of hibernation and got to work on the sucrose. 

Problem solved!

Conversely, it is unwise to store beer in too hot a place. For example, don't leave it in a hot attic room all summer. The beer will simply get cooked and probably taste like mouldy cardboard. 

Treat your yeast with temperature love

Two important things that can help with proper conditioning of beer:

1. Don't be afraid of the dark

Like a vampire, you should embrace the darkness. 

Beer does not like sunlight at all. Especially if you are using recycled green beer bottles. If your beer is exposed to too much light, it is said to be 'light struck' or 'skunked'. 

The UV light causes yet another chemical reaction in the beer - the hops are broken down by the light and they form a new compound when mixed with the proteins in the beer - giving off a horrid smell just like a skunk can do.

2. How long do I let beer condition for?

You have to let your beer condition. The rule of thumb is that your beer is probably drinkable after one week but is only beginning to get close to its best tasting at three weeks. 5 and 6 weeks is even better.

If you've ever found a forgotten beer in the shed that's had three months of conditioning, you probably really enjoyed it right? 

That's just proof you need to give your beer time to mature. 

When you are ready to drink your beer, remember it is best served chilled. This reduces the chances of foam pouring out from the top of the bottleneck. This is why placing beers in the fridge overnight works best for serving homebrew. 

Some points to ponder about bottle storage

• It's really good to have a storage place where the temperature is maintained at a steady & consistent rate.
• Ales are happy with lower temperatures
• Lagers are happy with higher temperatures
• The middle of your house is probably cooler than nearer the outside. That could be a factor where you store beer.
• If you find your beers are in too hot a place, move them! Seriously, if you leave your beers in an area where it is too hot the yeast produces a really volatile ether (I think) which makes the beer taste like methylated spirits or petrol. I know this occurs from my owner personal experience - I had TWO fermenting drums wrapped in sheets in my shed in a NZ summer and they cooked and the end result was I had to tip my bottled beers out (I didn't realise what had happened until after conditioning but put two and two together). 

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Venting over carbonated beer bottles

Have you ever had a beer gusher? 

They damn well suck.

You casually open your beer and whoosh! There's beer foam all over the bloody place. 

Why did this happen? 

The fizz is the result of over carbonation. 

There could be a few reasons for this. 

1. You bottled too soon and fermentation continued.

2. Your beer is infected by bacteria and they have overproduced on the CO2

3. You added too much sugar at bottling time.
4. You served your beer too warm

All these factors you have a strong degree of control over. 

If you've bottled too soon, you should have taken a final gravity reading and determined that matched the kind of beer your making and that you had the same reading two days in a row. 

If your beer is infected, it's quite likely you didn't clean and sterilize your equipment and bottles properly. I've said this a million times on these pages, you got do the basics and do them well. 

And if you added too much sugar, you might want to rethink your practices. If you batch primed, how much sugar did you add?

From my experience 40 - 60 grams is enough sugar to prime 23 litres of beer.

 Any more and you will quite likely get gushers. 

If you added sugar individually to each bottle, then you clearly added too much sugar. I used to use a good amount of sugar, now I try and use half a tea spoon of sugar. It's more than enough. 

If you want a consistent and safe measure, you can always consider using carbonation drops when bottling your brew. 

How to fix gusher beers by venting the bottle

To fix over carbonation, vent your beers individually. 

The technique is that you gently pry the bottle cap open so that only a part of the cap is exposed, let the CO2 escape and then quickly recap.

You need to all of this before the gusher occurs! If you are clever you should be able to use your bottle opener to both open and close the cap with the same action. 

It will be a long, painful process and you'll likely need to repeat the venting on each bottle if there is a lot of built up pressure. 

I have found in the past that the colder the beer is, the less likely it is to gush or be too fizzy or foamy.

Thus I would recommend that you leave your beers in a fridge for 24 hours before attempting this little rescue job of your beer.

Let's be clear though - if you've got gushers because you've got a bacteria problem, your beer is rooted and you'll need to tip it out and sterilize the bottles very well. Or you can store for a long time and hope the beer sorts itself out. That's kind of a Hail Mary move though...

A wee risk to bear in mind 

Over-pressurized beer can explode.

And that means glass can explode. I've seen the result in my man shed - green glass everywhere and the dank smell of wasted beer. 

If your under pressure beers are at that much of an extreme point you should ask yourself is it safe to vent?

While beer bottles are generally tough, the risk is there so I'd recommend you use gloves and a good pair of safety googles or glasses. 

What's the lesson here then? 

Use less sugar when bottling beer

Extra for Experts: Carbonating homebrew using a Soda Stream machine

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