Liquid Yeast Worries

I brewed my first batch with liquid yeast last night. White Labs London Ale, 35 ml. I had kept it refrigerated until I started brewing the wort, about 6:30 PM. It took an unbelievable amount of time for the wort to cool down enough to pitch. I finished the boil at about 7:30 PM, but it didn't get to 75 F until about 1:45 AM. I even had it in the freezer for about half the time. Anyway, when I opened the yeast vial, the liquid started foaming out, so I just dumped it in. There was a definite CO2 hiss when I opened it.

My questions are:
1) If the yeast starts foaming out of the vial, is it still any good?
2) If I don't see any bubbles in the air lock yet (it's now 5:00 PM on Monday), should I be worried?

BTW: This is a wheat beer, an Oberon clone.

You shook it and created the bubbling. Next time shake it then just crack it a bit to let it vent, close, re-vent...it takes a couple of times to settle but it will.

It'll be fine. RDWHAHB. Next time, make a starter 8+ hours before pitching.

Yeah, the one time I used liquid yeast, it exploded when I opened it. Thankfully I did it over the sink.

I am happy to report that this morning my brew was happily bubbling away. I can't wait to get home and check it again.

homebrewer_99 said:

You shook it and created the bubbling. Next time shake it then just crack it a bit to let it vent, close, re-vent...it takes a couple of times to settle but it will.

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The instructions on the bottle said to shake it well. Fortunately I was over the wort when I opened it so I didn't lose any. Next time I will definitely be more careful!

It took longer than 6 hours to cool the wort? Wow. How much are you brewing? 20-30 gallons or something? That is way too long.

If you are sanitary, you can sanitize a balloon and stretch it over the mouth of your carboy and wait until the next morning to pitch yeast if you want or need to.

If you're doing a partial boil (less than 5 gallons) try filling a sink or bathtub with cool water just high enough that you can safely put your brewpot in it with no chance of any water getting in. Occassionally move around the brewpot to keep cool water against it or run fresh cold water. SHould take around 30-40 minutes to get down to pitching temp.

If you can't get a wort chiller, try this next time: instead of adding the hot wort to cool water, get a gallon or two of water at the grocery store, freeze it, and then cut the jug apart and place the giant ice cube in your bucket, and add the hot wort to that. Two frozen gallons of water will usually drop your temperatures to around 70 inside of 10 minutes with proper stirring.

I place 4 gal of filtered water into the freezer for 4-5 hours prior to brewing and use it to top off to 5.25 gals. Down in the 70s in less than 3 minutes.

I've been doing this for over 10 years. Never had a problem.

Yeah, I was definitely planning on freezing a gallon or 2 of water for next time. I have used a bag of ice in the past. It worked great, but I worry about contaminating my wort cuz you just don't know how the water was handled.

BTW: Wort was still bubbling away at a healthy rate this morning.

Ok, now I'm worried. My wort stopped bubbling. When I checked it yesterday morning it was bubbling, but last night it had stopped. Still no bubbles this morning. I tried rocking the fermenter to get things going again. It gave off a few bubbles, then stopped. I have a warmer on my fermenter because the room is about 65 F. I don't know if I should pitch more yeast, add Beano or what. I've had this happen with the last 3 batches I've brewed and am getting a bit discouraged.

Relax, everything is probably fine. What exactly are you brewing? You generally get a vigorous fermentation for a couple days and then it slows way down. It's still fermenting, just much more slowly because it's nearly done. Just leave it alone in the primary until this weekend and then go ahead and transfer to secondary.

I'm brewing what might be termed a summer weissen. If you're familiar with Oberon from the Bell's Brewing Co., it's a clone of that. It's a summer weissen because Bell's only brews it in the summer and it has citrusy overtones.

Wheat beers will fermet like a rabid dog at first, then slow down. Noticed your signature......your bottled clone didn't turn out too well, what do you mean exactly. Are you trying to prefect this particular brew? The problem may lay within your techniques rather than materials. Read as much as you can on this site or www.howtobrew.com read.read.read.read. Then go over your notes from your previous batches and look for problems.

What was your OG? How much time passed between the time that you noticed bubbling and the time that it stopped?

OG was 1.054 on Sunday. I first noticed the bubbling Tuesday morning. So it probably started sometime during the night. I first noticed is stopped yesterday morning. So somewhere between 24 and 36 hours.

With the other batch of Oberon clone I forgot to put priming sugar in before I bottled it, so most if it is pretty flat. Some have a little carb, but not much. I also used Perle for my bittering and Saaz for aroma. Didn't like that combo, so I switched around for this time around.

Ouch, no priming sugar? I'd pour it all back into a bucket, mix in the sugars and some dry yeast, and rebottle.

Mix in dry yeast? How much would I use? I'm concerned that I'd end up over-carbing the beer. I would think that maybe a quarter pack would suffice. Then there's the question of what type of yeast. Same as I originally pitched?

A) You cannot overcarbonate. Even if you added 10 packets of yeast, they can only produce as much CO2 as the sugar will allow. Think of it this way: let's say you have 10 porterhouse steaks sitting on the grill, and you only have a limited amount of space in the outhouse turdhole. Now, for the sake of argument, let's say that anyone you invite over to your house is coming on a completely empty stomach and digestive system. So, does it matter whether you invite 5 people over for steaks, or whether you invite 15? Nope, the outhouse will still see the same amount of waste, because there's still only 10 steaks. Carbonation depends on how much sugar (food), not on how many yeast cells (eaters) there are. As long as you only add 1.25 cups of DME per 5-gallon batch, you won't witness overcarbonation.

B) On the other hand, adding too much yeast will lead to a distinctively yeasty taste in the beer, which is no good.

C) I've used a quarter-packet before, that seems to do the job. Make sure to rehydrate the yeast for 10 or 15 mins using sanitized water prior to adding it to the beer.

D) If you're using dry yeast, it won't really matter what type. Just anything that will eat sugar and turn it into alcohol and co2.

E) Because of all this handling of the beer, you might end up with some infection---but what have you got to lose? 2 cases of uncarbonated beer? What good is that? Just be very careful about sanitizing everything.

Well, I bottled my Oberon clone last night. After a OG of 1.054 I was happy with a FG of 1.014. 4.2%. And this time I did use priming sugar. Can't wait until I can open 1.

Evan! said:

Talking about yeast, steaks, and poo

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That is the WEIRDEST analogy I've ever seen on this board ever!

I finally got around to adding priming sugar to that batch I forgot to prime. I re-hydrated the yeast before adding it to the freshly primed wort. No sooner had I put beer in a bottle than bubbles started forming. I bottled Tuesday, 1, 2/07, and by that Friday, the beer was already well carbonated. And, boy-howdy, is it ever tasty!!

One thing I think may have contributed to the taste of the beer. I checked my records and discovered that I originally bottled it in February 06. It has a really mellow flavour, good after-taste and a nice mouth feel. The only possible downside is that it's a bit yeasty, but that's somewhat normal for a weiss.

Thanks for all the advise and encouragement!