Too much yeast?

So I've mostly dealt with full grain mashes, but for this one I'm fermenting an extract & partial mash mix and have just pitched the yeast. This is only a 1 gallon yield and I've pitched the whole packet of yeast (11g), which I am now realizing was probably more appropriate for 5 gallons.

I woke up this morning to a furious carboy - tons of activity in there and probably a cup's worth of head blown off through the air tube and into the bowl of sanitizer.

What should I expect this to do to my beer? Will taste be way off, or will yeast just do it's thing and all will work out? Are there any remedial steps I should take at this point? Thanks!

It sounds like you over pitched . . . but at this point, there's not much to do other than sit back, drink a homebrew, and wait for it to become beer.

All in all, it should still work out for you.

Not likely. Some of the time, too much yeast will over-heat the fermenter. That isn't likely for a 1 gallon batch. There are a few styles where the slow-growth of the yeast pre-fermentation is important for the final flavor, but those styles require exotic yeasts.

pitch rate isn't just based on volume, but you couldn't really have a gravity high enough in 1gal that an 11g packet wasn't over pitching. it should be fine, but here's some info from wyeast:
High pitch rates can lead to:

Very low ester production
Very fast fermentations
Thin or lacking body/mouthfeel
Autolysis (Yeasty flavors due to lysing of cells)

http://www.wyeastlab.com/hb_pitchrates.cfm

i've done that... the beer will be "yeasty" in flavor which will be a bit annoying if it's a cream ale, or wheat beer, or something very light and "yeast forward".

less of a problem with a very hops forward pale ale, or something heavier.


only time will tell if it's drinkable or not.


i suggest you just ride it out, and give the beer plenty of time for fermentation (and especially conditioning).

btw... make sure your blow-off tube is in.

Great, thanks to everyone for the feedback! After about 12 hours only air is going through the blow-off tube - not beer, so that is good! I've lost a bit of volume through the tube during those 12 hours (1 cup?)... can I top it up with sanitized water, or is that a bad idea?

Also, I was planning to switch to airlock after 2-3 days (assuming bubbling has subsided) and then let it sit for 2 weeks before bottling. This is usually what I do with my all-grain brews. Is this a good rule of thumb?

Glad to be part of this forum... just joined now that I am on my fifth 1-gallon mix, but still don't know entirely what I am doing!

change that plan to about 5 days, and only pull the tube when you are SURE that it's no longer required.


care to guess how i know that (see post above that says "i did that, once").

Just a quick follow-up on my 1 gallon, over-pitched porter (The O.P.P., as it's appropriately been named):

After going wild in the fermenter during early fermentation, things died down and I switched to airlock on day 5. I waited one month before bottling and batch primed w/ maple syrup.

In the meantime, I've done lots of reading about lots of things and am half way through fermenting my first 23 litre batch. I've become very intrigued by tasting my ingredients and my beer at different stages of the brewing process, so I decided to crack green bottle of The O.P.P. open after only a week... juuuuust out of curiouslty and knowing it would not be good. This was my first time drinking green beer and it was definitely NOT good... I inarticulately described it as "flat w/ a few very sparse little bubbles; woody, sharp & boozy taste; not very good at all". Haha, then I did a little bit of research on ethers and fusel alcohols!

Though I did not enjoy my green beer experience and my O.P.P. is not in a good place at this moment, I'll be interested to see if it blossoms into at least a "drinkable beer" or if it is in fact an unfortunately ruined batch.