seigex

Recipes 

Yeah... although I've been on vacation for the last couple weeks and spent the whole time in my air conditioning.

Actually I was concerned about the high gravity (1.076) and not having time to do a starter.. the packets were $1.25 as opposed to a white labs liquid which I normally get that was $6 (i ended up saving a couple bucks this way anyways) So the More Beer guy said I should just go with three packets and not worry about the starter. It turned out my gravity ended up not being that high anyways.

__________________
That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves. — Thomas Jefferson

On Deck: Green Flash West Coast IPA
Primary: Addicted Coffee Stout
on tap #1: Hefeweizen
on tap #2: none :(

passedpawn

Recipes 

Same here: my ruination used only 2-row and crystal 60L. I did add 2# of sugar after the initial fermentation to push up the ABV. It was a beauty. It will compete in August.

OG = 1.083.

smarek82

Recipes 

Since you didn't hit your est. OG, what kind of IBU's did you get out of it?

Is it going to be overly bitter since you planned on a higher OG?

Just a thought, I do like the grain bill and I love how simple this great beer looks to brew. I think I shall give it a shot!

BTW, if ya'll think cleaning up is harder with extract brewing, I'm glad I steered away from it after only 1 brew to go to AG.

__________________
Keg 1: Coal Miner's Daugter Porter
Keg 2: Red October
Keg 3: Hopsolutely

Bottled: 1 Vienna Lagers; Erins Irish Red; Pils, Christmas Doppel, Addy's Amber Ale(competition brew), Mayden Voyage Blonde Ale

Primary:
Secondary:
Future: Something Belgian, ESB

seigex

Recipes 

Not sure.. I did take a taste test prior to racking to the fermenter and it was super-bitter, but I'm not sure that the gravity-level is going to accentuate it or not. I guess I'll find out here in a month or so

__________________
That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves. — Thomas Jefferson

On Deck: Green Flash West Coast IPA
Primary: Addicted Coffee Stout
on tap #1: Hefeweizen
on tap #2: none :(

Yankeehillbrewer

Recipes 

I was also thinking that you might be overpitching, but after reading up on it in Designing Great Beers, it seems that Commericial brewers aim to pitch about 200 billion cells per 5g's. And that anything up to 400 billion cells per 5g's is acceptable. My math says you probably pitched about 207 billion cells, if all of your cells were viable. That's using the numbers provided by the Fermentis Website. But I still think one packet would be good

seigex

Recipes 

I haven't researched it, but I'm confused about overpitching.. If you pitch X amount of cells, and the initial phase is the growth phase anyways, what does it matter if you pitch 2 or 3 times that amount since they're going to grow to the specific amount, most likely higher than that initial amount, to handle the amount of sugar in the wort anyways. And even if there are an over amount of cells, all I could imagine is that they're going to be fighting harder for the amount of sugar they want to consume.

I'm not saying I'm right and I'm definitely not a microbiologist, thats just what was on my mind every time I heard someone talk about overpitching.

However, this is definitely the strongest fermentation I've ever seen, and the gravity of my last beer was somewhere around 1.055 when I pitched 1 vial of liquid yeast and it was a very slow fermentation.

This one started putting off CO2 within 45 minutes of pitching and now looks like a rolling boil (12 hours later). Pretty exciting to watch, and my 6 year old who helps me brew my beer was very excited to see it too.

And I'll be honest, I was always sold on White Labs liquid, which is Uber expensive, but after reading that you should be doing a starter with it, I don't think I'm getting any extra benefit from using liquid yeast.

I think I'll stick to this Safale brand if my beer turns out ok (the only dry yeast at my local B3 shop). Anyone else with Safale experience?

__________________
That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves. — Thomas Jefferson

On Deck: Green Flash West Coast IPA
Primary: Addicted Coffee Stout
on tap #1: Hefeweizen
on tap #2: none :(

SixFoFalcon

Recipes 

Safale US-05 is my go-to yeast for many American styles. Basically anything that calls for a nicely attenuated neutral/clean flavor ends up getting the US-05 treatment in my brewery. I've used it a couple dozen times and I've always been happy with the results.

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Primary: Nothing
Secondary: ESB
Kegged:Apfelwein
On tap:Witbier, American Stout, Imperial Stout, Root Beer
Bottled:"Massacreation" Chinook Barleywine, Belgian Golden Strong Ale, English IPA, Cabernet Sauvignon
Next: US IPA

Yankeehillbrewer

Recipes 

I agree US-05 is a great yeast. I've used it for my last 4 brews. I was always a die-hard liquid yeast person also, but US-05 changed my views on that. Next batch I'll be trying Notty for the first time.

As far as over pitching is concerned, I did a little more reading. It appears that the concern with overpitching is that the growth phase is essentially bypassed because the yeast get to work right away. The growth phase is good to a point because you then have new,strong yeast cells through the duration of the fermentation. Either way, you didn't overpitch and I really shouldn't have said anything without being fully educated, which I'm still not.

seigex

Recipes 

Haha, well the luxory of this forum, and most others on the internet, is that aside from a few of us who actually do have degrees/training in microbiology, brewology (is that a word?), or chemistry, most of us learn by making outrageous claims that we actually know little to nothing about, and hoping the masses (forum readers) either prove us wrong based on actual knowledge or they accept it as fact and the laws of physics/chemsistry/whatever change just for us.

In actuality that makes sense, and spikes my interest, there has to be some sort of chemical that raises in the wort released by each yeastie that when it hits a certain level, they know not to reproduce anymore and the lack of that chemical due to over pitching my change the flavor of the beer..

Any yeastologists (again, a real word?), or anyone with more than a half-assed online community college education want to way in on this?

__________________
That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves. — Thomas Jefferson

On Deck: Green Flash West Coast IPA
Primary: Addicted Coffee Stout
on tap #1: Hefeweizen
on tap #2: none :(

samc

Recipes 

S05 is my favorite. Ruination really calls for S04 as I recall. An English dry yeast is more to style if that matters to you. It ferments really fast with 1 pack of S04.

A favorite of mine, but no body else likes it around here so I have to drink it all myself.