Did not rehydrate yeast for high gravity brew

Mostly due to ignorance, I did not rehydrate my yeast for a high gravity (~1.071) brown ale. Do you think this will ultimately make the end result too sweet? If so, is it worth buying more yeast to add at some point? Also, I assume it's worth buying a yeast starter? Thanks.

Are you talking about using s04 or s05 something else? Starters are good but you don't necessarily have to with the safale products.

I did use s04. When using s04 or s05 you don't have to worry about rehydrating? Trying to learn as I go.

Not re-hydrating can kill as much as half of the yeast. Most of the time that only delays the start of fermentation by a few extra hours.

It shouldn't make any difference in the final gravity and sweetness, just take a little longer.

I always rehydrate the yeast when using dry yeast. It allows the yeast to wake up and get ready for fermentation. If you choose not to rehydrate, it will just take longer for the yeast to start fermenting the beer. Which just means a longer fermentation time. Just take the 10 mins it takes to boil up 2 cups of water and let it cool to aprox 70 degrees and then add your yeast for 5mins. You will thank yourself later.

Thanks for the advice!

david_42 said:

Not re-hydrating can kill as much as half of the yeast.

Click to expand...

How does this happen if it's in a dormant state when pitched? I just got done poking around the Fermentis web site and they say to rehydrate which is contrary to what everyone has ever told me about these products(I guess I should have done my homework before using). Either way, I've only used s-05 once and I just sprinkled it on the wort and everything was fine. I'd just take notes and then compare the notes on the beer to the notes from next time around(and use a starter next time).

There was an article in BYO a few months ago that ran an experiment on rehydrated vs non rehydrated. The differences were minimal. I'll see if i can find the article online.


Edit: Here's a link to the experiment:
http://ec.libsyn.com/p/1/a/e/1aeeb0...1ce3dae902ea1d01cd8131d2cc5c8a97&c_id=3529671

Here's a pretty awesome time lapse video of the yeast orgy:
http://traffic.libsyn.com/basicbrewing/BYO-BBR.wmv