Brewers Yeast, can it be used?

[Mr.C]

I am new here, I live in the USA, and dont know of any 'local home brew stores' around here. I do although have some GNC Brewers Yeast, is it possible to use this?

Thanks,
Mr.C

[junkyard dawg]

No, thats probably a nutritional supplement. Get bread yeast at any grocery.

[professorsdm]

FYI, the "ONE Brewer's Yeast" from GNC does NOT work. It says it contains active yeast, but this is not the case. Do not buy it...

Hope that helps someone to avoid spending the $10 that I did...

[eternalfrost]

yes brewers yeast can surely be used.

but anything from GNC is NOT real brewers yeast, it is the trub and lees. basically the dead yeast and by products left in the bottom of the fermenter.
quite packed with nutrients, but nothing alive left. just a nutritional suppliment.

real brewers yeast from a homebrew shop or online place will work just fine though

[rabbit_]

nutrients that would help the bakers yeast to ferment faster/better?

[rad14701]

nutrients that would help the bakers yeast to ferment faster/better?

Yes, but the nutritional yeast doesn't provide all of the required nutrients... Boiled yeast may actually provide more nutrients and is probably cheaper than dried nutritional yeast...

[zymos]

nutrients that would help the bakers yeast to ferment faster/better?

Yes, but the nutritional yeast doesn't provide all of the required nutrients... Boiled yeast may actually provide more nutrients and is probably cheaper than dried nutritional yeast...

I'd say you've gotten that backwards, or at least sideways.
Nutritional yeast is yeast that was grown with lots of extra vitamins added, whereas your boiled yeast is just yeast that was fermented (though probably with some nutrients added also).
I'd be willing to bet that an amount of Nutritional Yeast has way higher amounts of B vitamins (which ARE most of the "required nutrients") than an equal amount of boiled active yeast.

Not sure how it compares price wise, though Nutritional Yeast is more convenient since it doesn't need to be boiled.

[rad14701]

I don't know that I've got anything wrong, zymos... Most of what I've read about nutritional yeast is that it's old brewers yeast being recycled as an additional income stream... I've never read anything about it being explicitly raised to be sold as nutritional yeast, but that doesn't mean it might not happen... Boiled yeast does provide vitamin B and Protein, and I see definite differences in my ferments when using boiled yeast... Never tried nutritional yeast, because I'm cheap, so I can't vouch for its performance in comparison... Plus there's something twistedly exciting about killing it yourself...

[zymos]

"Brewer's yeast", which I believe is rarely found in the past decade or 2, IS spent yeast from beer fermentation.
"Nutritional Yeast" is what almost any store will sell, and it IS produced specifically as a nutritional supplement. Red Star has been making the stuff for years and years.
If you compare active dry yeast to Nutritional Yeast, it is immediately obvious which one has more B vitamins- one is tan colored, the other yellow.

Which is the reason I said the statement that boiled yeast has more vitamins than "Nutritional Yeast" was incorrect.

[rad14701]

Yep... I found more information on several vegan sites that I'd skipped in favor of yeast sites... At any rate, GNC Brewers Yeast is sold as nutritional yeast and not active yeast, as previously discussed... It would be interesting to see side by side fermentation comparisons between boiled and nutritional yeast at some point...

[zymos]

Strangely enough, the 3rd post in this thread says:

"FYI, the "ONE Brewer's Yeast" from GNC does NOT work. It says it contains active yeast, but this is not the case. Do not buy it..."

I have no idea why a nutritional supplement from GNC would claim to contain "active" yeast in the first place. Whole yeast cells are not very useful as a supplement for either humans or live yeast...