It is not often that we have a chance to talk to luminaries of the homebrewing hobby. When we get a chance, we clear schedules and hop on Zoom. Since it’s happened exactly once, I am guessing we will act the same way when other opportunities come up. We’ll see.

White Labs’ Next Generation of its PurePitch is rolling out to homebrewers and we chatted with the founder of the company to talk more about it. Check out our interview with Chris White.

White Labs Pure Yeast & Fermentation

To start off our conversation, we talked to Chris about the history of his company. He started it back in 1995 and it has grown to having multiple locations in 27 years. We asked about where their yeast is being produced, hoping that homebrewers on the East Coast of the USA has the chance of getting packets from their Ashville, NC location. Learn more about what Chris had to say about where the majority of their yeast strains are being produced and their shipping practices.

PurePitch Next Generation Details

The big reason we spoke with Chris is the expansion of their new PurePitch Next Generation packaging. White Labs yeast has gone from a tube to a packet. With Next Generation, the best features of both formats are coming together.

The new packaging includes a resealable cap, so you don’t have to sanitize a pair of scissors or separate packaging layers before pitching. The tubes came with a cap which allowed for easier opening and now the packets will have that feature.

With the cap, Next Generation will allow you to store of any unused yeast and unlike the tube, it will have optimal off-gassing with White Labs proprietary fused two-layer film. The film is designed for one-way off-gassing to reduce any product inflation and maintain yeast health.

We also liked the fact that the new packaging will deliver double the typical cell count (7.5 million cells/mL per 5 gallons) so we should be able to use Next Generation PurePitch packets more often without using a starter.

Thanks to Chris White for the time and thank to you for your attention.

Brew ON!