First time with Safale

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doublehaul

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I'll be brewing with Safale s-04 today. I always have used wyeast and typically get a starter going so this is a different experience. I grabbed safale yesterday because i want to brew today and didn't have time for a starter. It's in my fridge right now. Any advice? Bring up to room temperature, hydrate or no? I've seen differing advice. Is one 11.5 g pack sufficient for 1.064 OG, to bring it down to around 1.018? thanks
 
Definitely rehydrate your yeast per the instruction on the packet. It is estimated that when dry yeast is pitched directly into the wort about 50% of the yeast cells die do to osmotic pressure. As far as warming it up, just take it out when you start your brew day and rehydrate while you are chilling. According to the Mr. Malty pitching rate calculator you would need 1.1 packets (12g) for a 5G batch of 1.064, but 1.0 should be fine especially with as high of an FG you are looking for. Hope that helps.
 
I like Safale's yeast, and use both S04 and S05 frequently. One thing about S04 I've noticed is that I like the flavor best when the beer is fermented at 64-65 degrees. Definitely try to keep it under 70 degrees if you can.

S04 will clear the beer nicely, so in 7-10 days you'll have a perfectly clear beer.
 
well there are no instructions on the packet! i think i remember reading about it in the palmer book though
temp control is going to be an issue - it's going to be pushing 100 here with no AC, but I can keep our house pretty cool. i will do my best about 70 but it's gonna be tough
 
well there are no instructions on the packet! i think i remember reading about it in the palmer book though
temp control is going to be an issue - it's going to be pushing 100 here with no AC, but I can keep our house pretty cool. i will do my best about 70 but it's gonna be tough

Like all mfrs the instructions are on their website:

Safale US-04
 
"Re-hydrate the dry yeast into yeast cream in a stirred vessel prior to pitching. Sprinkle the dry
yeast in 10 times its own weight of sterile water or wort at 27C ± 3C. Once the expected
weight of dry yeast is reconstituted into cream by this method (this takes about 15 to 30
minutes), maintain a gentle stirring for another 30 minutes. Then pitch the resultant cream into
the fermentation vessel."

Do you follow this method? Stir for 30 minutes? Does anyone use a stir plate for this? Or would that be overkill? I have it sitting in a measuring cup (yeast + cup of water), I wonder if it would be safe to drop a sanitized stir bar in.
 
Do you follow this method? Stir for 30 minutes? Does anyone use a stir plate for this? Or would that be overkill? I have it sitting in a measuring cup (yeast + cup of water), I wonder if it would be safe to drop a sanitized stir bar in.

I think it would be overkill. I simply sprinkle a packet or two on a cup of warm water (slightly less than body temp), and let it sit for half an hour. It should foam around the edges by then. Then I swirl it a bit to suspend it evenly, and dump into the fermenter. It usually gets going in ~4 hr.

S-04 does have a reputation for nasty off-flavors at higher fermenting temps, so try to keep it at 70 or lower.
 
doublehaul said:
well there are no instructions on the packet! i think i remember reading about it in the palmer book though
temp control is going to be an issue - it's going to be pushing 100 here with no AC, but I can keep our house pretty cool. i will do my best about 70 but it's gonna be tough

You can always make a swamp cooler! Use a bathtub in a pinch but I ran and grabbed a round kitchen garbage can for $10 at wal-Mart to make mine. Fill the can 1/3 with water and freeze a gallon water jug or even a couple water bottles. Change them out once you see they are melted (maybe twice a day) for at least the first 3 days after which you can probably leave it alone until you are ready to bottle or keg.
 
You can always make a swamp cooler! Use a bathtub in a pinch but I ran and grabbed a round kitchen garbage can for $10 at wal-Mart to make mine. Fill the can 1/3 with water and freeze a gallon water jug or even a couple water bottles. Change them out once you see they are melted (maybe twice a day) for at least the first 3 days after which you can probably leave it alone until you are ready to bottle or keg.

I ended up doing about the same thing. I have it sitting in a plastic rubbermaid with water and wet towels draped over it - I read somewhere the evaporation cools it also. I did put some ice cubes in initially but they are melted now. I'll have to add frozen jugs like you suggest. I think I'm doing Ok but it was around 74+ initially before I did this. I hope that short time at high temps won't cause off flavors. 101F here today!
 
"Re-hydrate the dry yeast into yeast cream in a stirred vessel prior to pitching. Sprinkle the dry
yeast in 10 times its own weight of sterile water or wort at 27C ± 3C. Once the expected
weight of dry yeast is reconstituted into cream by this method (this takes about 15 to 30
minutes), maintain a gentle stirring for another 30 minutes. Then pitch the resultant cream into
the fermentation vessel."

Do you follow this method? Stir for 30 minutes? Does anyone use a stir plate for this? Or would that be overkill? I have it sitting in a measuring cup (yeast + cup of water), I wonder if it would be safe to drop a sanitized stir bar in.

I use a stir plate for this all the time (300 ml beaker and small stir bar) and it works like a charm (see the "stirred vessel" part in the instructions). I get a surprisingly big krausen on the yeast while it's rehydrating. Did two packs of US-05 in 230 ml of water yesterday. Boil the water, then chill in a freezer to 70 degrees, sprinkle the yeast in, set it on the stir plate, then forget about it for half an hour or an hour on the stir plate, then pitch and aerate.
 
I use a stir plate for this all the time (300 ml beaker and small stir bar) and it works like a charm (see the "stirred vessel" part in the instructions). I get a surprisingly big krausen on the yeast while it's rehydrating. Did two packs of US-05 in 230 ml of water yesterday. Boil the water, then chill in a freezer to 70 degrees, sprinkle the yeast in, set it on the stir plate, then forget about it for half an hour or an hour on the stir plate, then pitch and aerate.

yeah I boiled 1 C and let it chill to a little under 90F because the mfr website suggested 27C ± 3C - so ~ 75F to 86F, and palmer's books said 95 to 105. I sprinkled on water, let sit for 15 mins, stirred with a sterilized thermometer then swirled (not all yeast had been absorbed), waited about 20, then swirled again and pitched.

I pitched at a little higher temp (74F) than I normally do (68F) because the website says - "Alternatively, pitch dry yeast directly in the fermentation vessel providing the temperature of
the wort is above 20C (68F)
" but in retrospect I should have brought down to 68 because somehow it got up to 78 after for a short time. I got it down to 72 quickly with wet towels, and now I have it at 68 in the "swamp cooler." We will see - pretty cool I can brew in this hot weather anyways
 
i've always just aerated and direct pitched and have never had an issue. most everything takes off within hours quite nicely. i usually pitch directly into about 75 degrees and then drop the fermentation temp down to 68. unless it's winter and then i just let it ride at house temps.

somehow stating that direct pitching will kill half the yeast doesn't make sense to me... it's just a big starter imo, but i'm not an osmotic pressure kind of guy - now i have to look it up. :)
 
all grain

O.K.

I asked that because I lost three Extract-batches brewed with "Safale S-04" , although I had controlled the temperature well ( always below 67 F ) .

Recently , someone in "HBT" told me that I should not leave the Beer for more than a Week on the yeast cake of S-04 and I should transfer it

to the Secondary after one Week .

I did so by my recent batch and the Beer turned out good with no problem .

I'm very interested to see how this strain would behave by your batch . So , please tell us about it by the next Weeks .

Hector
 
somehow stating that direct pitching will kill half the yeast doesn't make sense to me... it's just a big starter imo, but i'm not an osmotic pressure kind of guy - now i have to look it up. :)

I have always thought the same thing--does anyone have any evidence or explanation of why the hydration of the dry yeast kills 50 percent of them if done in the post boil, hopped wort, but not in a starter, which is really just unhopped wort?
 
O.K.

I asked that because I lost three Extract-batches brewed with "Safale S-04" , although I had controlled the temperature well ( always below 67 F ) .

Recently , someone in "HBT" told me that I should not leave the Beer for more than a Week on the yeast cake of S-04 and I should transfer it

to the Secondary after one Week .

I did so by my recent batch and the Beer turned out good with no problem .

I'm very interested to see how this strain would behave by your batch . So , please tell us about it by the next Weeks .

Hector

will do. what happened to your batches?
 
I have always thought the same thing--does anyone have any evidence or explanation of why the hydration of the dry yeast kills 50 percent of them if done in the post boil, hopped wort, but not in a starter, which is really just unhopped wort?

The goal is to pitch sufficient yeast into the fermenter to achieve active fermentation as quickly as possible. A 50% kill going into a starter is no big deal, because you don't care about the lag time in a starter. You do care about it in the fermenter, or you wouldn't bother with making starters in the first place.

I only tried using dry yeast without rehydration once , and it took almost 24 hours for fermentation to get going. When I rehydrate first, the same amount of dry yeast gets going in 4 to 8 hours. This is too small a sample size to reach any general conclusions, but that experience, on top of the manufacturer's recommendation to rehydrate, plus the fact that rehydration is stupid fast and simple, compels me to rehydrate every time I use dry yeast.
 
what happened to your batches?

They were Extract-batches . I always kept the Beer in the Primary for 3 Weeks and then primed and bottled . But , all of them ended up with a very sour and undrinkable Beer . At first , I was suspicious of infection . Although , I had sanitized everything very carefully . Sometimes even so extremely as if I was a Surgeon in an Operation room .

As I explained my brew day in details , some HBT members told me that it couldn't be any infection . Eventually , a member told me the trick .

If only she had told me that much earlier . :(

Anyway , I brewed a small test batch and let it sit in the Primary for 1 Week and transferred it into the Secondary and let it sit there for 2 Weeks .

At the end , it was the first drinkable Beer I've ever made . ;)

Hector
 
They were Extract-batches . I always kept the Beer in the Primary for 3 Weeks and then primed and bottled . But , all of them ended up with a very sour and undrinkable Beer . At first , I was suspicious of infection . Although , I had sanitized everything very carefully . Sometimes even so extremely as if I was a Surgeon in an Operation room .

As I explained my brew day in details , some HBT members told me that it couldn't be any infection . Eventually , a member told me the trick .

If only she had told me that much earlier . :(

Anyway , I brewed a small test batch and let it sit in the Primary for 1 Week and transferred it into the Secondary and let it sit there for 2 Weeks .

At the end , it was the first drinkable Beer I've ever made . ;)

Hector

that is interesting, I wonder what is up with that. I was planning on not touching for 2 weeks but maybe i'll transfer to secondary when I dry hop.
 
that is interesting, I wonder what is up with that. I was planning on not touching for 2 weeks but maybe i'll transfer to secondary when I dry hop.

There's no need to transfer. That yeast strain is good quality and I use it often. I dryhop many batches right in the fermenter and it works out fine. The key with most yeast strains is to simply stay within the optimum fermentation temperature range.
 
The goal is to pitch sufficient yeast into the fermenter to achieve active fermentation as quickly as possible. A 50% kill going into a starter is no big deal, because you don't care about the lag time in a starter. You do care about it in the fermenter, or you wouldn't bother with making starters in the first place.

This makes sense. Thanks.
 
Yooper how long do you typically leave in the fermenter with safale at optimal temps
 
I hear the hydration argument a lot. I've used Safale on 5 batches so far from extract kits where the yeast is sitting at room temp for months and I put it right into the aerated wort and get insane krausen in 24 hours.
 
I hear the hydration argument a lot. I've used Safale on 5 batches so far from extract kits where the yeast is sitting at room temp for months and I put it right into the aerated wort and get insane krausen in 24 hours.

Well that must be the absolute perfect way to do it then.
 
Well that must be the absolute perfect way to do it then.

No, not what I was saying. My point is, a lot of worry occurs when it comes to pitching and, in my lazy methods of just dumping it in the fermenter, I've had zero issues even with a beer with an insane OG of 1.101.
 
I'm curious about losing 1/2 the yeast cells too. If a packet of dry yeast has ~ twice the cells as a smack pack, but half of them die if you don't hydrate, how is that different than underpitching with 1 smack pack. Sounds like you'd end up with about the same number of healthy yeast cells...(as long as your smack pack has close to 100% healthy cells). I know from experience that 1 smack pack in a 1.054 wort is seriously underpitching...with that said, I just brewed a 1.044 dry stout with S-04, and didn't rehydrate.

Not arguing with the pros on this, but the math just doesn't seem to work.
 
No, not what I was saying. My point is, a lot of worry occurs when it comes to pitching and, in my lazy methods of just dumping it in the fermenter, I've had zero issues even with a beer with an insane OG of 1.101.

Well that must be the absolute perfect way to do it then.

Actually, if you read the Fermentis instructions it says you can either bloom the yeast first or you can direct pitch into the wort. (I'm obviously paraphrasing.)

And yes, anecdotally, there are lots of people making great beer pitching dry yeast.

Although, at an OG of 1.101 I'm guessing it probably finished under-attenuated, but I could be wrong.
 
adamjackson said:
No, not what I was saying. My point is, a lot of worry occurs when it comes to pitching and, in my lazy methods of just dumping it in the fermenter, I've had zero issues even with a beer with an insane OG of 1.101.

I think the response here is more in line with the mentality. The question is, "Do you care a lot about the quality of the finished product?"

The reason to hydrate the yeast is due to the fact that the difference in gravity inside the yeast vs outside the yeast is such that the water inside the yeast gets sucked out. In essence, the yeast goes poof, and implodes. Some yeast is strong enough to withstand the pressure, but a straight pitch of dry will negate the bonuses of pitching dry yeast in the first place. You lose a considerable amount of the population.

It's similar to people that pitch their tubes or smack packs without making a starter. There is a thread floating around here where they studied the effects of over pitching and under pitching. I've seen that underpitched yeast mostly takes longer to take off, and also will throw more off flavors. The end result is going to be beer, but it might not taste as good as it could.

YMMV, naturally. It's one of those brewer's choice type of things.
 
I hear the hydration argument a lot. I've used Safale on 5 batches so far from extract kits where the yeast is sitting at room temp for months and I put it right into the aerated wort and get insane krausen in 24 hours.

With hydration I get insane krausen in 8 hours (and noticeable activity in 4). I prefer that.
 
bringing up my old thread. I am going to use this yeast again but now we're in winter and cold temps will be my problem. what's the lowest you want to go with this yeast? I know their website says 59 - 75F, but everyone said keep it around 64 to 65, so how does it do on the low temp end? thanks
 
04 is a beast of yeast and will do well 60 or above. Even in cold temps if you start higher than ambient, the heat generated from fermentation will carry you a bit. I would not go below the specified range.
 
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