Measuring yeast for pitching into very small batches

Disclaimer; I am brewing predominantly ginger beer, and experimenting with some commercial yeasts in pitching.

My batches of ginger beer are 1~2 gallons max, as it's consumed pretty quickly and I turnover the bottles/bug about once per month... sometimes twice. Up until now I've been using my homegrown ginger bug w/ naturally occurring yeast in my environment but I'd like to boost them a bit and try some commercial yeasts from a local home brew store.

When looking at the yeast packet, it recommends 11.2g yeast per 20~30 liters of liquid. I did the math and came up with 1 gallon = 3.785 liters, so that means I should be using 2.12g of yeast per gallon, but that seems like a lot since my bug is good, but not great.

I'm just trying to boost the carbonation levels per batch and thinking 1g yeast in addition to my bug should be adequate, but how to measure for a single gram? I tried using my kitchen scale (which is supposed to measure in 1g increments) but could not get it to register just one gram. I'm afraid to eyeball it as I want to have a basis for feedback per batch as to how much yeast was too little/too much and/or adversely affecting flavor.

Topic pitching ginger-beer yeast homebrew

Category Mac

1
answered at

If your bug is already doing the job all right, then your worst enemy - underpitching - cannot get you. You also do not want to overpitch, to avoid changes in taste. Thus you have options as follows:

  1. Use amount that does not register on your scales and hope it is under 1 gram.
  2. Buy Jeweler's Scale with precision of 0.01g - available under $20. Scales with 0.1g precision are not significantly cheaper, so I wouldn't consider them.

  3. According to this site

    Instant yeast: 1 teaspoon = 3.1 grams; 1 gram = 0.32 (1/3) teaspoon

    You do not need to be exact, so this may be good enough for you.

  4. You can take 10g of yeast, add it to water to get 100g of solution. Use 10g of solution.

1
answered at

Your scale may be capable of 1g increments but just not starting from zero. Place something on the scale first that puts you in the middle of the scales reported range of operation. Then weigh out 1 extra gram of yeast. For instance put a can of soup or cup of water on the scale then balance whatever you were going to measure your yeast into on top of that. Measure one additional gram with the yeast.

This only works if your scale can indeed weigh in 1 gram increments. Otherwise you need a scale designed for weights at the low end.

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