Beer Forum

I saw a product in the Whole Foods bulk bins called Nutritional Yeast from Red Star. The ingredients were listed as dried yeast and vitamins b1, b2, b3, and b6. It is flaky in appearance. I was wondering if anyone has used this as a nutritive additive in place of Servo, and what results folks may have gotten.

I havn't seen this but it sounds like a brewer's yeast supplement. Like a vitamin. Not something you would use to make beer or bread. Let us know.

It looks like this is a nutritional supplement for people. The vitamin profile may be out of whack for yeast to benefit from. A while back, I bought a huge pack of dry bread yeast from Costco, I think it was around two pounds. I would throw a spoonful of dry yeast into the boil near the end. Since dry yeast leaves the factory loaded with all the vitamins and minerals they need for optimal health, it seems to me that they should make a great yeast nutrient after being broken down in the boil.

Yes, I was inquiring about it as a nutritional supplement for the yeast.... the ingredient list is thus : Ingredient Statement: Inactive dry yeast, niacin (B3), thiamin hydrochloride (B1), riboflavin (B2), pyridoxine hydrochloride (B6), Vitamin B12

I found a nutritional break down for it here...
http://www.bulkfoods.com/nutritional_yeast.htm

Based on zinc quantities, you'd be adding about 12g of this to your wort to get ~0.12mg of zinc / Liter (as recommended in White & Zainasheff). The nutritional information is based on 16g, so all the quantities would be about 3/4 those listed in the table. From my limited knowledge of yeast micronutrients, nothing seems like it would be over a maximum amount, but if any hardcore yeast farmers want to speak up, that'd be good. If I decide to play around with it, I'll add some to a starter and see how it goes compared to other yeast nutrients, I think the price would come out to just over $0.28 per 5 gallons.