Yeast problems with stout today

So here's a good one. After a very good brew day making an oatmeal stout, new barley crusher, 80% efficiency etc, I proceeded to drop the damn yeast on the floor. I usually make a starter but did not have time and was using wyeast 1084 activator pack. Anyway dropped the pack after I opened it spiliing about 1/2. Pitched the other half but store was closed. I figure I will pick up another one tomorrow at lunch and pitch it after work. What do you think about the low pitch rate?

PS- Brewed today in WI at 0 with windchill. Man it was cold even in the garage. March pump actually started to freeze after I circulated sanitizer.

That's why I love my heated garage!

As for your yeast...you'll be fine. Underpitching may cause it to take off slowly, so you definately need to pitch more tomorrow. In the meantime, you should be fine.

Recent BYO article detailed an experiment regarding pitching rate and found that the only thing it correlated with, across various beers, was lag time. Granted this was not a randomized control trial but it was interesting...

A heated garage may be in my near future! The cold makes the Love temp probes on my brutus almost unusable. The cold affects the thermowells and the probe never catches up. I had to use the analog thermos and manually fire the gas but it worked. I will repitch tomorrow although by 10 PM I do have some krausen and a bubling blow off so it appears all is not lost.

mgo737 said:

Recent BYO article detailed an experiment regarding pitching rate and found that the only thing it correlated with, across various beers, was lag time. Granted this was not a randomized control trial but it was interesting...

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I've read this article, and based on the way it was done, I don't buy it. It may be true, but there are a LOT more variables to think about. I wish they would have tried pitching into an undersanitized fermenter to see whether the underpitched yeast could beat down the bacteria before they took hold. Also, I would have liked more info on extreme overpitching.

I wish they would have tried pitching into an undersanitized fermenter to see whether the underpitched yeast could beat down the bacteria before they took hold.

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There are yeasts that suppress other yeasts, but bacteria are a whole different matter. Even a fully fermented barley wine can get infected.

Suthrncomfrt1884 said:

I've read this article, and based on the way it was done, I don't buy it. It may be true, but there are a LOT more variables to think about. I wish they would have tried pitching into an undersanitized fermenter to see whether the underpitched yeast could beat down the bacteria before they took hold. Also, I would have liked more info on extreme overpitching.

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Of course there are a lot more variables. But whenever doing an experiment, you want to change one variable and keep all of the others the same... I agree, that the results are unexpected. But so is a lot of brewing myths that you put to the test.......