Yeast Wars----dry vs. liquid

[Beer-lord]

The last 12-15 months, I've really concentrated on learning more about yeast. I went into my OCD mode and asked questions in a few forums, tried a number of styles and though my beer tastes are somewhat narrow, my brewing techniques have improved and I am very pleased with a number of my beers. And, I rely on people on this forum and local friends to tell me what they think and be honest.
I have come to believe that the beers I do with liquid yeast, be it fresh or harvested, are better than dry. Not a huge difference, but a difference nonetheless. I find the taste is better from front to back with less off flavors.
I'm not dissing dry yeast and still plan to use it but in 2014, I'm starting a serious bank of yeast stock for the fridge. I plan to have my stir plate working much more and I find the price is worth it for liquid especially since I make big starters and save some for future beers.
I notice it much more of the beers with less hops, where you can really tell the back flavors of the malt. Hops can hide lots of yeast flavors but I now know what yeast I want for my own recipes.
The rest of this year I plan to brew my older recipes that used dry yeast and switch to liquid and continue to keep notes. I plan to increase my use of liquid yeast from about 60-40 to 75-25 in 2014.

[Kealia]

I notice it much more of the beers with less hops, where you can really tell the back flavors of the malt.

Like YOU make a beer with "less hops". Maybe less hops that Jeff, but that's about it!

Ok, staying on topic: I used dry yeast when I started with MrB batches but quickly found out about and moved over to liquid. I just like the versatility it affords. I've never done a taste of US-05 against WLP001 (for example) to see if I could notice a difference, so maybe this year I'll try to to do more half batches with different yeasts (even if they are just liquid/liquid) to start more comparisons.

[mashani]

With the same pitch rate, I've never tasted a difference between say S-05 and WLP001, or S-04 vs Wyeast 1099, or Bella Saison and Wyeast 3711 - all of which I believe to be equivalent strains.

Now if you were to make a big enough starter to effectively get a higher pitch rate then the dry equivalent, then I'd think you could tell the difference perhaps. Whether that is better or not would depend on if you were going for a cleaner profile, different levels of attenuation, etc.

That would be a really big starter for me, since I'm usually pitching 11g packs of dry into 2.5 gallon batches when I do it.

And of course if you are going to brew something that does not have an equivalent strain, then of course the liquid would give you a better profile. IE there is no dry yeast I would ever use for a Kolsch or German Alt bier that I've tried. But then I have no idea what Danstar's german dry yeast is like as I've never seen a pack of it in the wild. Although I like T-58 in some beers, I would not use it to replace my Westmalle strain (WLP530/3787) - No dry yeast makes the flavor profiles I can get from it. London ESB is another one.

So I dunno, I would not call it a war, it's more of an "it depends" to me.

[Beer-lord]

Maybe 'war' was a bad word for me to use but in my personal yeast battle over the last year and because yeast is my weakness in my brewing knowledge, I've probably spent too much time over thinking things. I agree, there is no better or worse, it's a personal taste issue mainly but from what I've tasted/tested of my own recipes, I prefer liquid. Add to that the savings I get when I make starters and that $7 vial of yeast can yield me $28 of yeast if I want to spend the time washing and harvesting.

[Kealia]

I don't think you are over thinking it at all. I'm actually surprised sometimes that more brewers don't spend more time on yeast health. I see grains and hops measured out to precise grams, recipes crafted from multiple tastings to get the ingredients just right and then just a "bought a vial of X and dumped it in" without regard for yeast health/count. I guess it's just like everything else, though - there is so much to dig into that you have to take them one at a time or it gets overwhelming. For example, somebody may say that they can't believe that I just recently starting treating my water given how much water is used to make beer.

I don't think I have a point here so I'm going to stop talking now.

[zorak1066]

ive made great beer with both liquid and dry. I think the notion of liquid being 'better' stems from the plethora of varieties of liquid over dry, each that you can play with to produce differing esters. then again, the belle saison dry yeast I used made all kinds of neat flavors and was easy to tweak using heat so... shrug... I would hazard that yeast is yeast, dry or not and as such it shouldn't matter.

kealia - I agree that the amount of learning can become kinda burdensome to some ppl and they just start taking short cuts like randomly picking a yeast and just dumping a quantity in. I personally wouldn't do that because I don't like crap beer... and I want to be a good host to my yeasty friends. I believe if they are going through all the trouble to make beer for me , the least I can do is make them the best home and food possible. do I obsess over it? yep.

[Gymrat]

Everything I have read says that dry yeast is every bit just as good as liquid. Dry yeast in the early home brewing days was inferior because it had impurities. But culturing technology has come a long way since then. The only disadvantage to dry yeast is there is less variety. As far as experimenting to see which makes a better beer for you. There is only one way to do that. Do a split batch and use a dry strain in one half and an equivalent liquid strain in the other half. Don't dry hop and do this with a malty beer so there is little to distract from the character of the yeast.