Results of my yeast pitching experiment.

For what it's worth, I thought I would share this.

Last Saturday we brewed 10 gallons of Phat Tyre (Fat Tire Clone). This was an all-grain dealio.

I split the wort into two different fermentation vessels. OG was 1.053. I aerated using pure O2.

In the first vessel I pitched just the cold yeast slurry from a 2000ml starter that had been made four days ahead of time (and placed in the fridge well ahead of brewing day in order to separate the yeast slurry from the beer).

In the second vessel I pitched an entire 2000ml starter that was at high krausen.

The yeast was WYEAST #1762 BELGIAN ABBEY II.

I was curious if the two vessels would perform any differently and maybe have different FG's.

Both vessels had activity at the same time, both looked the same throughout fermentation (amount of krausen, airlock activity and swirling yeast (holy crap, it was like a mosh pit in there). Lastly, both stopped at the same time.

Today's gravity reading was 1.012 on both vessels of beer.

So, with the above data, it looks like I'm going to keep with the practice of just pitching the cold slurry. As others have said, "why put all that starter beer in the beer your trying to make if you don't have to?"

I hope I didn't waste anyone's time here, I just found the results interesting.

One thing I have found about making 10 Gallon batches is that I can experiment with different yeasts/other factors in each fermentor.

well you could take this experiment to the next step and update us with carbonation and taste results too

Thanks for the experimental update! That's good info. I'd also be interested if you can detect any stale, oxidized, or off flavors in the beer where you pitched the full starter.

abazin said:

Thanks for the experimental update! That's good info. I'd also be interested if you can detect any stale, oxidized, or off flavors in the beer where you pitched the full starter.

Click to expand...

I will post further results. Although, my plan is to bottle one batch and keg the other, so I'm basically throwing a monkey wrench into any further comparisons.

Lastly, Fat Tire never wins the battle of "which six pack to buy" with me. It is a great crowd pleasing beer and I wanted to brew something for my Dad's 70th Birthday that he would like and that the rest of the party would like. The hydrometer sample tasted mighty fine.