Watch: Let’s revisit the benefits of yeast propagation (consistency to cost savings) with Gusmer

Growing healthy yeast requires love and science — regulating temperature, aeration, pH, osmotic pressure, nutrient source and the overall redox potential of your propagation conditions. It’s complex, but luckily commercial brewing operations have tools to help. The proper procedures to culture healthy yeast to pitch into a medium where fermentation will occur requires brew science that can greatly benefit from the help of specialized equipment. The crew from Gusmer Beer explains this and more in the excellent webinar above — Yeast Propagation & Yeast Monitoring.

Gusmer provides brewing expertise focused on fermentation, filtration, processing aids and beyond, selling everything from lab equipment to entire brewhouses, often as a distributor. Five experts from Gusmer host this excellent webinar on the benefits of fresh propagated yeast: higher viability and vitality compared to dry and harvested yeast; higher attenuation; faster pH-drop; lower amount of fatty acids; faster diacetyl reduction; consistency in fermentation performance; significant cost savings; and independence from external yeast suppliers. Along with these lab insights, Gusmer also discusses the equipment used by both big and small operations. 

On the smaller size, mbt Brautechnik is now offering the Prop-Bit, which is a modular, lab scale yeast propagator with a simple wall- or floor-mounted panel to control aeration and temp. Then there are bigger, modular, stand-alone systems from the German brand Christian Gresser, which offers a slew of yeast propagator sizes (1, 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10, 12.5, 15 and 20 hl), dual or single tank configurations, touch panels for propagation programming and options like tank insulation. Throughout the process, you can always use a highly accurate yeast monitoring device from ABER, measuring live yeast concentrations in real time.

There are a lot of great options out there for craft breweries. Learn more about the science behind yeast propagation and the mechanics of the equipment involved in the video above.