Hello all it has been a while since I've posted, but I'm back looking to leach some of your brewing wisdom.

I would like to start using dry yeast as it is easier to keep and I've seemed to have better luck with. My question is about pitching rate of the dry.

Using Mr. Malty Pitching Rate Calculator http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html.....

When you have an ale, say 1.065... Mr. Malty's calc says to pitch 14 grams of dry yeast. Okay sounds good... but. Most dry packets of yeast are 11grams each so I would have to put a full one in plus 3 grams from another packet, no problem but what do I do with the other 8 grams of yeasties? Even though dry yeast is cheaper I couldn't just throw my buddies out. Although on the package it states that yeast will deteriorate after being opened.

What are you master brewers that are using dry yeast doing in these cases?

I wouldn't worry too much about pitching 3 extra grams of yeast, and would just pitch the one package. If the Mr. Malty calculator called for around 17 or 18 grams of yeast, I'd pitch two packages. I like to keep things as simple as possible these days.

Cheers,
Dave

+1 on that. It's probably best to just "round off" to the nearest number of packages needed. Dry packets are only 100 percent viable fresh from the factory. They become less viable over time, even when stored cold.

Dry yeast packets are relatively inexpensive.

As Bierbelly says the entire yeast is not likely to be entirely viable.

In such cases I would be inclined to always round up. In other words, use two packets instead of one in this case.

In mean, you have to seriously over-pitch the yeast for that to be a problem and more yeast you have the less likely bacteria and other beer spoiling microbes can take hold.

Oh well...just my two cents worth.

- Scott