For our Friends, Saccharomyces...

Hey all,

I wanted to give a shout out to the unsung hero here at the P-Brew, Saccharomyces! This amazing little single cell organism is who is puling the graveyard shift here at P-brew turning our sweet wort in to delectable beer. I was reminded of them when we added the peach puree to the Fru-it Gruit.

The Fru-it Gruit had gone though all of primary fermentation and the air lock had slowed, if not stopped. The millions of yeast cells who had done their job of converting the sugar we made in the mash tun days before into alcohol were spent. They were going into a nice relaxing dormant stage and staring to slowly settle to the bottom of the fermenter for what is normally a week or so of rest and relaxation. But, being the crazy mad scientist beer makers we are, we decided to awake these sleeping beauties buy dumping some Delaware peach puree into the fermenter. The puree was made from peaches from the same farm that Dogfish gets theirs from for the Festina Peche. The 30 lbs of peaches were blanched, skinned, pitted, pureed, pasteurized and cooled. After all that we had an amazing, frutose filled, aromatic love bomb just begging to be added to the Fru-it Gruit. As the puree hit the beer the last few yeast cells that were still in the krausen parted very quickly. It was as if Charlton Heston was standing on top of the fermenter yelling, "Let my Peaches GO!" The fermenter was re-capped and the airlock returned to its rightful place.

This is where I was truly reminded of the amazing things yeast do for us.

If you think about it, these yeast just had a hard 24 hour a day work week and were just settling into their week long vacation that was much deserved. Then on Friday at 4:35pm the "Boss" drops a stack of papers and folders that is 16" tall into the inbox and says, "If you could get these done by Monday that would be Grrrreat." Then just before he leaves the Yeast's cubical the Boss spins back around on his heals, just slow enough to not spill his coffee, and says, "Don't forget to fill out the TPS reports for these either. OK." But, rather then slumping in their chairs and zoning our for 15 minuets, the air lock on the frementer started bubbling! And I am talking seconds after the tank was sealed back up. These guys are such go-getters.

So to make a long story short, the next time you are sitting at the bar at P-brew and enjoying a delicious pint of beer that Tod and Tyler made. Don't forget the Saccharomyces that are working hard while we are sleeping!


Cheers,
Tyler