HERB - stevia

[Wes Will]

Magdalena wrote:

>     BTW, champagne yeast is evil and never dies and eats sugar until the world ends.  (thinking dark thoughts about that 23% alcohol peach wine)

LOLOL  Thanks for the chuckle, I can use one about now.  You have
the right of that.

As for bread yeast in brewing, I don't really recommend it at
all.  Yeasts do not only have a specific "flavour profile" as was
mentioned previously, they have many other characteristics that
can be manipulated by the yeast production/gen-gineering folks. 
Champagne yeast, as you have noticed, is "optimized" to survive in
a high-alcohol environment and to produce quite a bit of CO2 gas
(the bubbles in the bubbly).  Bread yeast is optimized for very
little alcohol production, middlin' alcohol tolerance, and
extremely high CO2 production.  Makes for nicely-risen bread, but
think of the havoc those critters can cause in a nice warm
anaerobic environment with plenty of sugars - a human intestine.

Bread yeast that survives being subjected to alcohol when used in
brewing can go dormant.  It grows a thicker cuticle around itself
and goes into "wait awhile" mode.  It becomes capable of surviving
lots of abuse, like being swallowed.... At which point it finds
itself in a nice toasty-warm, moist, food-filled place and
promptly wakes up and goes back into production.  At the least,
you'll have quite a case of flatulence.  At worst, you can get so
inflated that, were you a cow, goat, or horse, we'd stick a
20-gauge needle into your tummy to let it all out.  For humans
they use a smaller needle.

No, I'd have to say that bread yeast is not generally recommended
for brewing.....at least not by me or any of my brew-fiend
friends.  Brewer's yeast is cheap enough (a buck a packet or less
for most of 'em) to make it unnecessary anyway.  There's also the
option of going to your local brew pub or winery, making the
acquaintance of some or all of the brewing staff, and wheedling a
(sterilized) pint jar full of really _good_ yeast out of the
bottom of one of their fermenters.  It works for me around here.

-- 
Eoin Caimbeul
MKA Wes Will
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