How do you know if your dry yeast is bad?
A good yeast culture is critical for proper fermentation of wort into beer. The question of whether or not your yeast is up for the task of brewing beer is answered by observing the yeast in action. Before being pitched into your wort, you need to “bloom ” your yeast by creating a starter.
Creating a yeast starter the day before brewday is always a good brewing practice. To create a yeast starter, you are pitching your brewing yeast into a very small batch of wort; just use some DME. The starter allows your dry yeast to rehydrate and hopefully begin to reproduce. If your dry yeast is dead on arrival, you will not see any activity in your starter. If all else goes well, you can pitch your starter into your a full-size batch of wort. Just remember to use the same sanitation measures that you would normally use for your full-size batch!
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