71B Won't Start

[sour_grapes]

Don't know that I suggested that the yeast eats the competitor yeasts but don't the dead yeast cells autolyze (break down) and when they break down don't the active yeast make use of the chemicals (minerals and nutrients) that now become part of the active yeast's environment? I guess I am saying that yeast do cannibalize dead yeast - Whoa - shades of Soylent Green

Mea culpa. I took "will act as nutrient for" to mean, well, to mean that EC1118 would eat the dead yeast. I am ignorant of the extent to which live yeast utilize the breakdown products of autolyzed yeast -- time for some reading, I guess!

 

[BernardSmith]

No mea culpa needed and I guess I don't know for sure how nutritious dead yeast is for yeast. Not a chemist, but the only papers I find in Google Scholar that discuss the nutritional aspects of autolysis seem to discuss this on the growth of other bacteria and organisms and not the yeast itself, whereas on another forum dealing with mead, those folk have no problem claiming the nutritional qualities ascribed to dead yeast cells and often suggest boiling bread yeast and dumping the concoction into a mead when the mead maker confesses to having no access to commercial nitrogen rich nutrients