Under pitched High Gravity Brew - am I screwed?

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MrPorter

MrPorter

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I am making a Wee Heavy with OG 1.083 from a kit. The kit came with a Wyeast Scottish Ale Activator smack pack 1728.

It said on the package that it can be activated and then poured into 5G of wort, so I did.

Now I am reading in a bunch of places that I have under-pitched and needed about 3 times the number of cells.

1) Am I screwed? Should I get more yeast and make a starter and add to the fermenter? Fermentation went great for about 36 hours and has now slowed to 1 bubble per 5 seconds.
2) Why would they sell a Scottish Ale yeast that can't handle HG brews anyway? Do people make low gravity brews with this yeast?

Cheers!
 
Advice for next time: Always make a starter. It can never hurt, only save you the hassle of under attenuated beer. I believe the statement on the smack pack is for worts in the 1.050 range, but I could be wrong. Just make a starter and the guess work is taken out of the equation.
 
no your fine. There is a lot of evidence to suggest you "SHOULD" pitch correctly. However when I first started brewing I was always under-pitching...and my higher OG beers always attenuated fine. 1080 with a scottish ale year is a tad bit high but I'm positive your beer will atteuate out fine. I've made way heavier beers and only threw in a single vial of california ale and it had no problem going from 1090 to 1020, but it took 3 days to start fermenting. so theres a trade off.

I always thought this site was newb friendly and it is, but sometimes theres too much information and to much "hardcore" brewing information here, and then people get harsh with the new kids when they do something sub optimal.

I still underpitch quite often. I don't have a schedule that allows me to make a starter 3 days before because I never know when I'm getting called in.

So me? I overpitch onto yeast cakes every week, and I underpitch new beers after its time to get rid of the yeast cake by only pitching one vial.

So I do everything "Sub-optimal" but guess what.

My beer comes out great...so its better to RAHAHB then get to caught up in some of the more detailed specifics posted here. Strive to improve but do realize your beer is going to be just fine.
 
h4rdluck said:
no your fine. There is a lot of evidence to suggest you "SHOULD" pitch correctly. However when I first started brewing I was always under-pitching...and my higher OG beers always attenuated fine. 1080 with a scottish ale year is a tad bit high but I'm positive your beer will atteuate out fine. I've made way heavier beers and only threw in a single vial of california ale and it had no problem going from 1090 to 1020, but it took 3 days to start fermenting. so theres a trade off.

I always thought this site was newb friendly and it is, but sometimes theres too much information and to much "hardcore" brewing information here, and then people get harsh with the new kids when they do something sub optimal.

I still underpitch quite often. I don't have a schedule that allows me to make a starter 3 days before because I never know when I'm getting called in.

So me? I overpitch onto yeast cakes every week, and I underpitch new beers after its time to get rid of the yeast cake by only pitching one vial.

So I do everything "Sub-optimal" but guess what.

My beer comes out great...so its better to RAHAHB then get to caught up in some of the more detailed specifics posted here. Strive to improve but do realize your beer is going to be just fine.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice, I really appreciate it and it has made me feel better. It seems like every time I brew I do something different wrong and panic about it. This is my first high gravity brew, so more things to be paranoid about :)
 

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