Mixing yeasts

[BoisBlancBoy]

Has anyone ever used more than one yeast per batch? I was just wondering if you mixed day bakers and distillers yeast in your wash/mash what would happen?

[Tater]

I've done it however I've read the strongest yeast will take over .

[Lazarus Long]

Yeast are living organisms. Can depend on environmental factors as well as the strain of yeast. Like Tater said, strongest will survive.

[BoisBlancBoy]

So even if one strain is stronger than the other why would only one survive? Do they prey on one another or just the sugars?

[Jimbo]

Some wine yeasts have whats called the K Factor K1-1116 for example. They produce proteins that inhibit other yeasts from multiplying. So they got the name killer yeasts. Even if you dont have K factor yeasts in the mix, as Tater says, some work faster, some slower. The faster one will dominate.

Whats more common is to first pitch a yeast that gives the profile your after, and if its not a highly attenuative yeast (doesnt go fully dry), then when its done you can pitch another highly attenuative yeast to eat up the remaining sugars. This is common is super high gravity beers. Start with an ale yeast,m finish with a belgian or Champagne yeast, for example.

[Lazarus Long]

Think survival of the fittest, Mutual of Omaha Wild Animal Kingdom stuff.

Yeast utilize their dead kin, but the overtaking by one yeast over the other is more of a crowding out thing. If the conditions are more favorable for one yeast than the other and you have a large enough quantity of that yeast then it is just a textbook exponential population problem. One chokes out the other. Its not that one yeast consumed the less viable yeast, it just overtook the space and available resources in reproducing.

If you wanted to play with flavors from two different yeasts, ferment out in two different containers then combine the two in your boiler in whatever ratio you want to try. Won't be any competion in the boiler. Any yeast in there are going to die the moment you put the heat to it.