Lost Half My Yeast

Last night when I went to pitch my yeast there was a problem. I guess I left it on the counter to long and shook it too hard. Any way, when I opened the vial it exploded. I lost some of my yeast and I can't really say how much.

Should I add another vial, or leave it alone?

I won't get into how you should have pitched it into a starter, and how you should be making a starter for any liquid yeast in a beer over 1.030.

And if you were making a starter loosing half of the yeast would have mattered less, because the purpose of a starter is to grow enough yeast to really do the job.

But as to the "exploding" tube issue, it happens to all of us at least once. That's because the yeasties have been farting co2 while they hung out in the tube.

A couple of tips for handling that.

1) No matter what size the mouth of the vessel is that you use to make a starter use a larger funnel (like the ones you can get from your lhbs) sanitize it and holding the stopper end pointing downward "inside" the funnel, open slowly, that way as it gushes it mostly sprays into the funnel.

2) Have starsan or whatever no rinse sanitizer in a spray bottle, and spray the tube as well as your hands thoroughly with sanitizer, that way if it gushes onto your hands and falls you've been sanitized.

3) Open slowly....twist it only slowly enough to crack the "ratchet" ring on the tube, then stop a second to let some of the co2 woosh out, then open the tube.

If you have another vial, then yeah you could pitch it. But in the future start making starters.

I always gradually crack the tube open to release some CO2. Almost everytime I shake the vial, I release some more. By the time I pitch into the starter, no explosions, no surprises!

Yeah - What Revvy said!

My plan was to brew a balanced beer (equally malty and hoppy), but I fear that it is much more malty than I planned. Will adding another vial of yeast help to reduce the malt character? Will dry hopping help reduce the malt character? Am I stuck with a malty beer?

Malty is more a function of the ratio of malt to hops in your recipe. Note that most beers taste sweet and/or grainy when you first put them into your fermenter... and often taste nasty for at least some period after that.

Until the beer is carbed up in bottles/kegged, you really don't know what is going on with it. Don't try to fix it until you have a real idea of what might be wrong.

And yeah, every single vial you ever open will spew like that if the yeast is good. Treat it like you would treat a shaken soda bottle - slowly twist off, reclose, repeat... and open above a big funnel!

My plan is to pick up a vial of yeast today and add it to the primary, but 36 hours after the initial yeast addition, I have a very vigorous fermentation going on.

Should I:
(A) pitch another vial of yeast anyway; or
(B) let it go until the fermentation slows down and then check the gravity?

Thanks for your input.

I am sure the yeast has propogated depending on the conditions. If you shook the carboy well prior to pitching, had some nutrients in there for it to use to grow (not all extract), then it should be fine. But, if you are making a very large beer with high initial gravity (1.060ish), then I would throw the other yeast pack in there now to avoid stressing out what is already there, regardless of whether there is a lot of activity or not.

My $0.02

I'd personally go with (B), but that's just me.

After 3 days of vigorous fermenting, the process has slowed down (no more bubbling from the S-shaped air lock and the water level has returned to an equal balance on both sides of the S-curve).
I took a hydrometer reading, at least I tried to. The beer is beer is super cloudy suspension of dissolved hop pellets and some type of white chunky substance. And it is loaded with this stuff. Also, there is a head at the top of the hydrometer tube that prevents me from taking a reading. As near as I can tell, the SG has dropped from 1.070 to 1.026.

Is this soup-like appearance normal?
Will all that stuff fall out of suspension and settle to the bottom of the fermenter after 2-3 weeks?
My biggest fear is that there is a bacterial infection. Am I being a worry wart Noob?

If it will help, I can post a pic tonight after I get home.

scurry64 said:

Last night when I went to pitch my yeast there was a problem. I guess I left it on the counter to long and shook it too hard. Any way, when I opened the vial it exploded. I lost some of my yeast and I can't really say how much.

Should I add another vial, or leave it alone?

Click to expand...

Recommends you crack open the vial's lid
just after removing from the refrigerator.
(While still cold)

Snug it back up and periodically re-crack
it open several times while it's warming to
pitching temperature.

scurry64 said:

After 3 days of vigorous fermenting, the process has slowed down (no more bubbling from the S-shaped air lock and the water level has returned to an equal balance on both sides of the S-curve).
I took a hydrometer reading, at least I tried to. The beer is beer is super cloudy suspension of dissolved hop pellets and some type of white chunky substance. And it is loaded with this stuff. Also, there is a head at the top of the hydrometer tube that prevents me from taking a reading. As near as I can tell, the SG has dropped from 1.070 to 1.026.

Is this soup-like appearance normal?
Will all that stuff fall out of suspension and settle to the bottom of the fermenter after 2-3 weeks?
My biggest fear is that there is a bacterial infection. Am I being a worry wart Noob?

If it will help, I can post a pic tonight after I get home.

Click to expand...

All that stuff in your beer is normal. Only the most active portion of the fermentation has finished. Leave it alone for at least a week, better yet 3 weeks. Then take your gravity readings to confirm that it is finished and you can bottle.

At this point the more you mess with it the more chance you will infect it!

Again, relax. Patience is very important in brewing good beer.

kh54s10 said:

All that stuff in your beer is normal. Only the most active portion of the fermentation has finished. Leave it alone for at least a week, better yet 3 weeks. Then take your gravity readings to confirm that it is finished and you can bottle.

At this point the more you mess with it the more chance you will infect it!

Again, relax. Patience is very important in brewing good beer.

Click to expand...

Got it. RDWHAHB

I took a taste on the beer from the hydrometer chamber . . . yum. I can't wait to drink my Frac Water Ale.

Thanks.

I just finished racking to the secondary. What started out as a 5 gallon batch of beer is now 4 gallons. There was a @&$! ton of trub in the primary, so I know I lost some during racking.

Is it normal to lose 20% of the beer during a 2 week primary fermentation?

Also, would there Ba adverse affects if I added a gallon of spring water at this point? It is considerably maltier and hoppier than I anticipated.

RDWHAH! don't mess with your beer dude

It all worked in the end. Aaaahhh

I need to get me some of those glasses

4 for $5 at Walmarket.

scurry64 said:

4 for $5 at Walmarket.

Click to expand...

And the wal-mart saves the day again! I really want to hate that place but it's just too convienent...

All they're missing is a homebrew section :3


(Not that I want them to kill our local hombrew shops, but my nearest shop is 45 min each way fighting through Boston Traffic and playing Frogger with Cambridge joggers who dont look when they run into the street, so it would be nice if I could buy extracts and stuff at walmart and go to the homebrew shop every month or two to stock up on specialty grains)

Andrew5329 said:

And the wal-mart saves the day again! I really want to hate that place but it's just too convienent...

All they're missing is a homebrew section :3


(Not that I want them to kill our local hombrew shops, but my nearest shop is 45 min each way fighting through Boston Traffic and playing Frogger with Cambridge joggers who dont look when they run into the street, so it would be nice if I could buy extracts and stuff at walmart and go to the homebrew shop every month or two to stock up on specialty grains)

Click to expand...

+1 to all this. I hate my local Walmarket. Don't get me wrong, I love Capialism and Sam does it as well as anyone, but rumor has it my local Walmarket is the third busiest in North America. I can't stand the crowds and don't get me started on the parking lot.

My LHBS is a 45 minute drive in Pittsburgh construction traffic, so no thanks. I go to the local wine supply store, which is < 10 minutes away from home. The shopkeep is a mench and the prices are reasonable for special order ingredients. I can't get crushed grains, but my 4 year old daughter loves to crank the hand mill and it gives us n opportunity to connect. In <10 years she'll be a teenager and I know from experience that those opportunities will be few and far between.

I'm starting to get sentimental, so I better stop now. Cheers!

So I assume your maltiness and hopiness mellowed with a bit of age? Also, nice lacing in your glass!

scurry64 said:

Is it normal to lose 20% of the beer during a 2 week primary fermentation?

Click to expand...

It depends on the kind of beer, if you bagged your hops (especially dry-hops), the yeast, etc. I always bag my hops now and that's saved me a good half gallon per batch. I am also more careful to strain my wort when adding it to the fermentor. Some yeasts also seem to cake better than others. I can't recall without my notebook, but I've had a few beers where the yeast cake was as hard as a rock and I got more beer into the bottles. And some others that the yeast cake was very soft and kicked up. With those, you can't get it all into the bottling bucket without also adding a bunch of muck, so there's more loss when that happens.

If I had to guess at an average, I tend to get between 40 and 45 bottles per 5 gallon batch which works out to about 4.2 gallons-ish.

It's hard to adjust to losing that gallon of beer, but it's mostly out of your control. The things you can do, roughly in order of effectiveness (and the more experienced people can add or correct) are:

* Bag all hops
* Don't secondary
* Cold-crash the fermentor
* Take fewer hydrometer readings
* Let it sit longer before bottling

kanddr said:

So I assume your maltiness and hopiness mellowed with a bit of age? Also, nice lacing in your glass!

Click to expand...

I think the beer is still pretty green at this point. It's only been 2 weeks in the bottle. At this point I would have to say no, the flavors have not mellowed or blended.

On the other hand, the hop aroma, head retention and lacing are top shelf.

While the beer is definitely drinkable, I'm hopeful it will improve over time. I wish I had one now, but my clients probably wouldn't appreciate that.

cms said:

I am also more careful to strain my wort when adding it to the fermentor.
It's hard to adjust to losing that gallon of beer, but it's mostly out of your control. The things you can do, roughly in order of effectiveness (and the more experienced people can add or correct) are:

* Bag all hops
* Don't secondary
* Cold-crash the fermentor
* Take fewer hydrometer readings
* Let it sit longer before bottling

Click to expand...

Good stuff. I don't do all these things, but I will try them in the future. Thanks.

scurry64 said:

I think the beer is still pretty green at this point. It's only been 2 weeks in the bottle. At this point I would have to say no, the flavors have not mellowed or blended.

On the other hand, the hop aroma, head retention and lacing are top shelf.

While the beer is definitely drinkable, I'm hopeful it will improve over time. I wish I had one now, but my clients probably wouldn't appreciate that.

Click to expand...

Maybe your clients would want one haha...

Yea, I just made a batch that I kinda screwed up, and knew it, but it is still drinkable, and seems to get better with time.