On Easter Sunday I had a very successful day of brewing beer. I made a Belgian Wit, and used yeast that was packaged no more than three days before I bought it Wednesday! So the package of yeast was only one week old, and did I ever notice a difference in the freshness!

The yeast began active fermentation within only six hours of pitching it. And after only two days, it already appears to have finished the primary fermentation – all krausening foam is gone. I plan on racking it to the secondary tonight. With luck, the freshness also allowed the beer to attenuate well.

Here is a photo of me on brew day, preparing all of the ingredients (measuring grains, hops, and extract so that everything is pre-measured and ready to toss into the pot when needed). As you can see, my son Will was giving me a hand (and, yes, that is a diaper next to the bag of extract in the foreground):