2nd extract brew; but what about the yeast?

[RichardG]

Not really a fair question, but I'm after opinions on the merits (or otherwise) of liquid over dry yeast. To give you some background, this is the recipe I'll be brewing up on Friday;

3.2kg Maris Otter extract
150g Crystal, 30 min steep
40g 6.5% Challenger 60 in boil
20g 5% EKG, 30 min boil
20g 5% EKG, 15 min boil
Irish Moss, 15 min boil
Yeast, Safale S-04

This will be, I've no doubt, fine. So what's the benefit to the above of any of the liquid yeasts available?

The other related is just how long do they last? None of my LHBS sell them so I'd have to get them online; Hop & Grape is an obvious source that springs to mind. However, they're £5 - £6 each, plus £4.70 P&P makes each one a tenner unless I can bulk order, which as I probably only brew once a month or so means I need a long 'shelf' life, especially as S-04 costs me £1.30. Gentlement, you thoughts please.

[boingy]

I always used dried yeast, simply for reasons of cost and convenience. S-04 is my yeast of choice with US-05 and Nottingham also used sometimes.

Liquid yeasts, arguably, give you more control over the final beer flavours. To reduce the cost of liquid yeast it is possible to grow it a bit then split it across several bottles and store for several months in a fridge. Plenty of info about that on this forum. But that is far too much hassle for me. I'd rather brew beer than breed yeast

[RichardG]

So today was brew day. The recipe used was as posted in my initial post above. Everything went pretty well, but there were two big lessons I learned. Firstly, it's damned difficult getting the wort sieved into the FV. I tried siphoning, but every time the tube immediately blocked with hop crud, even when I tried whirlpooling. I was able to sieve it by a convoluted route, but a great big sieve would make it a lot easier (I believe Ikea sell them). Secondly, I calculated that the ingredients should give some 996 gravity points, which when divided across the 22 ltrs I was planning would give a OG of c1045 (anyone seen the obvious error yet?). So I was somewhat surprised, and a little disappointed to get an OG of 1038. Then it hit me. This is the first time I've done a pure extract brew, and what I hadn't factored in was a loss of fermentables etc to the trub, and I also slightly got it wrong and ended up with 23 ltrs. If you check the 'hints and tips' section, under recipe formulation it suggests an efficiency of 85%. When I do that I get;

996 / 23ltrs x 85% = 37

Or as close to the 1038 I actually got! Must factor that into the recipe next time.

Now I'm using S-04 which last time gave me an attentuation of just over 75%. Assuming the same this time I can hope for a FG of c1009 which will give an ABV of 3.8%; perfectly acceptable.

So, all in all, a most instructive day.

[RichardG]

So, checked on progress this morning, just to see how it's going. Delighted to see there's a very health foam forming. Can't quite tell looking through the bicket if it's crusted over, and I'm damned if I'm going to open it! It's fermenting, and that's fine by me. Let's see what the PG is in 10 days or so.