[morticaixavier]

Could one, if one were so inclined, use brewers (nutritional) yeast as a yeast nutrient? I know somefolks will put left over yeast cake in the boil for this purpose and it seems like this would be very similar.

thoughts?

[corkybstewart]

I can't see any reason it wouldn't be perfect for it.  It's a great idea.  We always have out of date bakers yeast in the fridge, that would be a great way to use it up.

[tschmidlin]

As long as it's 100% yeast I wouldn't be concerned at all.  I've never used it, so I don't know if there are any additives.

The other thing is that you won't be getting the brewing specific micronutrients that they put in blends from wyeast and white labs, but that might not be that important for you, especially if you are not usually reusing your yeast.

[morticaixavier]

As long as it's 100% yeast I wouldn't be concerned at all.  I've never used it, so I don't know if there are any additives.

The other thing is that you won't be getting the brewing specific micronutrients that they put in blends from wyeast and white labs, but that might not be that important for you, especially if you are not usually reusing your yeast.

generally the nutritional yeast has added B12 (cyanocobalamin?) other than that it's just yeast. Perhaps I can find actuall brewers yeast which I beleive is byproduct of the brewing industry so that should have most of what I need.

I do reuse my yeast on occasion, ussually just once as I don't have a busy enough brew schedule to allow for regular 3,4 or 5 generation repitches. Nor room in the fridge to keep yeast in.

Will the B12 be a problem do you think? I think I have some yeast nutrient anyway so for this next barley wine I might add a bit of that but it would be interesting to know as we always have a big jar of nutritional yeast in the fridge as my wife actually likes it mixed with orange juice. blech

[tschmidlin]

Yeast already has a lot of B12, it's strange that they add any.  But with as little as you'll use in a 5-gallon batch, I wouldn't worry about it.

[hopfenundmalz]

One of the old British homebrewing books stated that Fullers would dump a bucket of their yeast in the boil to provide nutrients for the fermentation.  Report back it you try this.

[Jimmy K]

Pretty much the same as adding yeast hulls.

[morticaixavier]

Yeast already has a lot of B12, it's strange that they add any.  But with as little as you'll use in a 5-gallon batch, I wouldn't worry about it.

From my research for raising a vegetarian baby I learned that in fact, yeast don't have much B12 at all, there are alot of other B complex vitamins and via some mechanisms for detecting B12 it appears to but if you depend on yeast as a B12 source you will be a very unhappy camper. Thus nutiritional yeast was created by RedStar with added B12.

I might try this with the heather ale I hope to brew this weekend. If no obvious off flavours I will try it with the BW and report back.