Made a big oops.

Hey all, first post here but I've been doing plenty of reading on this site. I made a really bad mistake tonight after brewing my beer and I'd like some opinions. I'm not sure if the recipe in this case would make any difference or not but I'll provide that at the end of the post. While rehydrating my dried Salale US-05 yeast I dropped the package on the floor and lost at a minimum half of the yeast, max of two thirds. I'm currently rehydrating whats left and letting it get going before adding it to the wort. I have a few options, I could just leave it and hope the yeast added populate themselves enough to do the job. I could go buy another packet of yeast, however that's a long drive and I'd prefer not do that (and can't do that now ). The third option would be to siphon a carboy I have filled with a IPA that's using the same yeast into a empty carboy, I could then add my newly made wort into that carboy (has a cake) and then put that back in my 6.5 gallon bucket. I cannot leave it in the carboy, it's 5 gallons and that's how much wort I just made.....at least that's my opinion, blowing up a carboy is not one of my interest! Anyway the idea would be to stir up the cake enough to get some yeast into the wort and back into my bucket. It's the same yeast in both batches. I just added the yeast and I'm leaving the bucket in a 68 degree room (higher than typical for me) to help the yeast get a jump start....hopefully. I'd really appreciate hearing what you'd do in the same situation.

7 lbs golden light liquid extract
2 lbs breiss golden light dry extract
12 ounces 60L crystal malt grain

Hops, all Centennial,
1.75 ounces added at boil (60 min)
1.25 ounces added at 45 min left in boil
.5 added at 20 min left in boil
.5 added at 10 min left in boil

OG 1.074

MOD EDIT: Threads/posts merged

First post here (or second?) I swear I posted this earlier? To make this simple here's what happened and possible solutions. I made a wort earlier this evening, dropped the yeast packet on the floor and lost half to two thirds of the yeast.......not good. I used what I could and it was bubbling away while rehydrating. I have a yeast cake at the bottom of a carboy that used the same yeast, safale us-05, so in theory I could use part of, if not all of that.....that would be a fair amount of transfer work. I cannot put the wort on top of the cake because the carboy is 5 gallons, same as the wort, it's currently in 6.5 gallon bucket. I can, would prefer not, going back to the store which is 45 minutes from my house at 70mph to buy more yeast, but thought I'd check other options first. It's an IPA and I posted my recipe the first time but in case I messed that up, here it is again:

7 lbs golden light malt liquid extract
2 lbs golden light DME
12 ounces 60L crystal malt steeped for 30 min

Hops, all centennial
1.75 added at boil, 60 min
1.25 added at 45 min
.5 added at 20 min
.5 added at 10 min

Hopefully this isn't a double post! Thanks for any opinions!

The good thing about dry yeast is that there's plenty in the packet. Normally I would say you should be ok, but the OG is pretty high on that recipe. You probably should have pitched two packets on that, but that's a good note for the future...

I agree, you can't pitch that much wort on the yeast cake you have, and you don't want to leave wort sitting around without fermentation. My concern also is that you may have gotten undesirable stuff on the yeast when you dropped it...

My advice to you is:

1. Take the hit and go to the LHBS if they are still open and buy two packets. Hydrate and pitch both.

2. If you have some DME around, make a quick starter with the dry yeast. I know normally you wouldn't want to with dried yeast, but since you have about a quarter of what you need, that would be your other option to pitch what you need. (You would want to pitch the starter by tomorrow morning at the latest.)

3. If that's not an option at this point, I would say warm the wort up to about 75, pitch the yeast, and rock the fermenter about every thirty minutes (as late as you can) to try to keep the yeasts in suspension and working. Then tomorrow, get another packet in the morning and pitch it.

ReverseApacheMaster said:

I agree, you can't pitch that much wort on the yeast cake you have, and you don't want to leave wort sitting around without fermentation....

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Why would it not be a good thing to dump the wort on the yeast cake? Sorry if this is a stupid question.

I would think that since the cake will have a much higher cell count, that it would be more effective. Especially since his OG is high at 1.074. I would think that the 1/3 of the yeast pack he has left would get stressed and give lots of off flavors and maybe stall. Why not pitch onto the yeast cake and attach a blow off tube?

Challenger440 said:

Why would it not be a good thing to dump the wort on the yeast cake? Sorry if this is a stupid question.

I would think that since the cake will have a much higher cell count, that it would be more effective. Especially since his OG is high at 1.074. I would think that the 1/3 of the yeast pack he has left would get stressed and give lots of off flavors and maybe stall. Why not pitch onto the yeast cake and attach a blow off tube?

Click to expand...

Because the carboy is 5 gallons and he has 5 gallons of wort, so once it starts to ferment it will blow off and lose a lot of wort.

Crazy idea:
Do you have an autosiphon? You could try to take out the sediment tip, bury it into the cake, and pump into the bucket. That might get you some yeast slurry without having to juggle beer around.

Whatever you do, if you do underpitch, aerate the hell out of that wort.

Put the lid on the fermentor...plug the hole with starsan soaked towl.

Goto lhbs and get two packets of S-05 and pitch in the morning.

Anything touching the ground is out. You risk contaminating wort and with underpitching you will not get a clean ferment.

Check out Mrmalty.com for how much slurry you'd need. Pitching on top of another cake will contribute potential issues trub and hop residue. The yeast is best "rinsed" only a portion of the cake is healthy yeast.

I know I always have California ale aka S-05 around in fridge. Its pretty cheap.

You'll be fine letting your wort sit overnight. Read the no chill threads on here.

Thanks everyone, added yeast this morning and bought a couple extra packets