Home Distiller

How many use a microscope for watching yeast activities? I recently watched a video of a home brewer and he had a microscope as part of his tools. I think that I need to search for a used microscope. This will all be new to me. Any assistance in the correct type and power will be welcomed. Thanks.

I am a commercial brewer and I can't really see any reason why you would want or need a microscope for distilling unless you are growing up your own yeast strain from slants, and even then it really isn't necessary. The one thing microscopes are good for it checking for cell mutations but that its if you are using a yeast strain in a brewery for many, many generations.

http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?ti ... in_brewing" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

Here's what you are looking for.

A microscope is handy for yeast counts which I think is less helpful for distilling, but can still be used for determining pitching rates.

Something like this might be interesting to use. You could document your results by saving it to disk.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R4 ... e&_sacat=0" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

I personally don't think cell counts (via a hemocytometer) are important in home distilling. That said, you certainly should pitch enough viable and active yeast. Check out the pitching calculator at http://www.mrmalty.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow to get an idea of how much yeast you need. For most of my washes I use fresh yeast slurry from a previous fermentation or US-05 dry yeast.

Yeast is mothers and daughters. Spying on them with a microscope doesn't seem appropriate.
This sounds like yeast voyeurism

Thanks for helping me figure out what I need. I'm kinda digging those usb microscopes on ebay. Time for some shopping.

I've had dunder ferment when it shouldn't and rum refuse to ferment when it should. I completely forgot that I had a microscope stashed away that I could have used as another tool to check out what was going on.

I do like the look of those USB units. They would be far easier for me to use and could be handy for my cheese as well. I'm going shopping too. Thanks for bringing this up.

Cheers
Chris