Yeast/fermentation question from calm, relaxed newbie

Fellas, my first batch of Sierra Pale Ale is 48 hours old and not a hint of bubbling. I've read all the "don't worry/don't pitch the brew" threads so I'm nice and relaxed and not panicking, but have one concern.

I followed all the instructions and there's only one thing I can think of that might be at play here. I neglected to hydrate the yeast (Safale US-05) until very late in the process (after the wort had cooled to 68 degrees), so I boiled some water, measured out a cup, cooled it for a bit in the water bath I cooled the wort in and added the yeast... but neglected to measure the temp of the hydration water. If the water was too hot/not cooled sufficiently for the yeast and that is the reason for lack of bubbling AT ALL at this point (48 hrs), would it have smoked ALL of the yeast -- thus requiring repitching? At what point do I declare the fermentation process dead?

Thanks for any/all guidance. Yeah, I know, DWRAHAHB or whatever the acronym is.

After 72 hours take a grav reading to see if it's dropped any.

Only then can you declare the yeast dead.

But yes, if the water was way too hot, it may have killed the yeast.

I am a firm believer of not rehydrating dry yeast... you have such a large viable cell count that it seems to do more harm then good unless you are very precise. I would check the gravity at the 72 hour mark... if nothing or very very little has changed I would pitch a new packet of yeast. You could have just really shocked the yeast which could cause a serious lag in the fermentation process.

BradleyBrew said:

I am a firm believer of not rehydrating dry yeast... you have such a large viable cell count that it seems to do more harm then good unless you are very precise.

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Interesting. This is the first time I've heard this perspective. Usually dry yeast users who don't rehydrate don't do it out of laziness, not conviction. The "large viable cell count" will, under most circumstances, become a deminished, retarded cell count. Then again, the experts might be wrong...

To the OP, are you using a bucket or glass carboy? If you're using a bucket, check the seal. First, the airlock is a notoriously unreliable gage of fermentation. Second, on some buckets it's easy to not seal them properly and the gas escapes out the seal, rather than the airlock. Thus, check the seal or wait and do a hydrometer reading.

I think you are ok to wait 1 more day, and if that doesn't do it, go grab the fermenter and rock it back and forth until you get a few bubbles showing. I did that last week after waiting a couple of days with no signs of fermentation. In my case though, I'd pitched some slurry saved from a previous batch of 05. It seemed to work anyway and chugged along as usual all week long.

Bierliebhaber said:

To the OP, are you using a bucket or glass carboy? If you're using a bucket, check the seal. First, the airlock is a notoriously unreliable gage of fermentation. Second, on some buckets it's easy to not seal them properly and the gas escapes out the seal, rather than the airlock. Thus, check the seal or wait and do a hydrometer reading.

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I'm using a bucket, and the seal seems very tight all around. The airlock doesn't extend very far into the O-ring grommet, but far enough I guess. I peeked inside the lid and there's next to no foam, no activity at all.

Bierliebhaber said:

Interesting. This is the first time I've heard this perspective. Usually dry yeast users who don't rehydrate don't do it out of laziness, not conviction. The "large viable cell count" will, under most circumstances, become a deminished, retarded cell count. Then again, the experts might be wrong...

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Not sure what you mean by retarded cells??? If you look at a pitch rate of a normal beer starting at 1.050 the perfect pitch rate is 80% of a 11 gram sachet of yeast. So even if 20% of the yeast dont survive the pitch you still have a "large viable cell count." Why worry about rehydrating and possibly burning up your yeast or worse creating a greater chance of infection. I'm just a fan of direct pitching because its less to "F" up lol!

A lot of seasoned brewers who use mostly dry will advocate that direct pitching is absolutely a tried & true method of pitching dry yeast.

I always direct pitch my dry yeast (usually US-05). My guess is your rehydration water was too hot and killed or the difference in in temps (rehydration vs wort) is slowing the yeast.

One other thought, did you aerate the wort?

BradleyBrew said:

Not sure what you mean by retarded cells??? If you look at a pitch rate of a normal beer starting at 1.050 the perfect pitch rate is 80% of a 11 gram sachet of yeast. So even if 20% of the yeast dont survive the pitch you still have a "large viable cell count." Why worry about rehydrating and possibly burning up your yeast or worse creating a greater chance of infection. I'm just a fan of direct pitching because its less to "F" up lol!

A lot of seasoned brewers who use mostly dry will advocate that direct pitching is absolutely a tried & true method of pitching dry yeast.

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Well, if it's been working for you, by all mean proceed. What I meant by "retarded," is that the yeast that do survive have a much larger chance/tendency to cause mutations by the manner of rehydration. The yeast will be rehydrated one way or the other--in water or wort. From what I understand, rehydration in wort--especially high OG wort--bursts or leads to mutation in a good number of the population. I'm not saying you can't make good beer by directly pitching dry yeas, just that it may be better beer if you rehydrate prior to pitching. But as they say, YMMV.

Bierliebhaber said:

Well, if it's been working for you, by all mean proceed. What I meant by "retarded," is that the yeast that do survive have a much larger chance/tendency to cause mutations by the manner of rehydration. The yeast will be rehydrated one way or the other--in water or wort. From what I understand, rehydration in wort--especially high OG wort--bursts or leads to mutation in a good number of the population. I'm not saying you can't make good beer by directly pitching dry yeas, just that it may be better beer if you rehydrate prior to pitching. But as they say, YMMV.

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I can see your point! I am brewing up a milk stout using S-04 tomorrow.. maybe I will rehydrate for the first time and see how it goes!

Cheers

Is it one you've brewed before? Absolutely give an update. I would be interested to hear if you notice any differences.

Bierliebhaber said:

Interesting. This is the first time I've heard this perspective. Usually dry yeast users who don't rehydrate don't do it out of laziness, not conviction. The "large viable cell count" will, under most circumstances, become a deminished, retarded cell count. Then again, the experts might be wrong...

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I don't fully agree this will "harm " the yeast but I can tell you with 100% certainty at least in my expierence I have never had a negative attenuation due to lack of hydration. Now as far as laziness being a reason not to hydrate uhhhhhh NO maybe read the back of a label of us-05 please note it says NOTHING about rehydrating also check the website again NOTHING. Suggested reading Papazian or Palmer says you can or if not pitch it straight. To call dry yeast users that don't hydrate lazy is ridiculous. All this being said I rarely use dry yeast but still lets not get out the Bible and start passing judgement. Now that I'm off my rant..... bubbling doesn't indicate fermentation a hydrometer can tell you more. Being that you tried to rehydrate and never checked the temp yes if it was 100 deg per say you may have reduced your viable cell count creating lag. Also what was you OG if it was higher than 1.070 you may have underpitched creating lag until a higher count was achieved. Please use a hydrometer worst case scenario as long as sanitation was practiced just pitch another S-05 packet DRY if you like and you should be fine. I'm sorry for the rant everyone I'm just getting tired of the "knocking" I see happening to often on this site p.s. what bradleybrew amy have been refering to was making a starter with dry yeast and yes he would be correct, don't do it it will make things worse.

Aschecte said:

I'm sorry for the rant everyone I'm just getting tired of the "knocking" I see happening to often on this site

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My appologies. After reading my comment over again, it does sound harsh. I wasn't referring to my assesment of the reason why people don't rehydrate, but to the common reason I hear stated for not rehydrating. Good on'ya for calling me out. Cheers.

I'm sorry I didn't mean to come off like a complete a** I know I did though it's just where all here cause we love brewing and like I said I use whitelabs liquid but I would hate for a newbie that never hydrated to read that and feel bad about what there doing ( hopefully they would learn something though ). I realized after reading more you didn't mean it the way it came across so I apologize also, and on that note let's have a beer !!! CHEERS !!!!! oh yeah and good luck to the op : )

dutchoven said:

One other thought, did you aerate the wort?

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I wasn't sure what you meant so I looked it up. No, I guess I didn't.

So, almost 72 hours in, no activity at all, not a budge in the hydrometer reading (originally 1.058, checked again this morning).

Since fermentation hasn't begun yet, too late to agitate? (story of my life! )

If not too late, do that before re-pitching?

BTW, this forum is outstanding. I founded and run a similar site for golf course superintendents (www.turfnet.com. Great to see the shared passion.

If you haven't had ANY signs of fermentation I say you would be ok to oxygenate the wort (there is really no difference from now and the time you cooled it down after the boil) and pitch new yeast. At this point the wort is extremely vulnerable to a infection so make sure everything is clean and sterilized. Just direct pitch the yeast this time .

The yeast will consume the oxygen and purge your fermenter of the rest of the o2 once they get to work. Good luck!

petermac said:

so I boiled some water, measured out a cup, cooled it for a bit in the water bath I cooled the wort in and added the yeast... but neglected to measure the temp of the hydration water.

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anything above about 104F is too hot for yeast to survive. Without the thermometer reading, it is quite impossible for us to give you anything definite.

Only you can determine if the water was too warm. How about duplicating the boiling/cooling process, then measuring where you think you did pitch - and see what that temp reading is? Then you will have an idea if any survived or you inadvertently killed them all.

Verify with your hydrometer, but since you've had no apparent fermentation, you can still oxygenate.

You don't need to rehydrate the yeast if you don't want to. If you do, I would add a little sugar to help get it going. You want to feel the water and it if it just feels slightly warm then you are fine. most organisms thrive near body temperature.

The few imperative things I have learned since starting to brew is sanitation, temperature, and time. Monitor and maintain these and you will be GTG.

From Dr. Clayton Cone of Lallemand:

Let me give you some facts regarding rehydration and you can decide for
yourself where you want to compromise.
Every strain of yeast has its own optimum rehydration temperature. All of
them range between 95 F to 105F. Most of them closer to 105F. The dried
yeast cell wall is fragile and it is the first few minutes (possibly
seconds) of rehydration that the warm temperature is critical while it is
reconstituting its cell wall structure.

As you drop the initial temperature of the water from 95 to 85 or 75 or 65F
the yeast leached out more and more of its insides damaging the each cell.
The yeast viability also drops proportionally. At 95 - 105 F, there is
100% recovery of the viable dry yeast. At 60F, there can be as much as 60%
dead cells.

The water should be tap water with the normal amount of hardness present.
The hardness is essential for good recovery. 250 -500 ppm hardness is
ideal. This means that deionized or distilled water should not be used.
Ideally, the warm rehydration water should contain about 0.5 - 1.0% yeast
extract

For the initial few minutes (perhaps seconds) of rehydration, the yeast
cell wall cannot differentiate what passes through the wall. Toxic
materials like sprays, hops, SO2 and sugars in high levels, that the yeast
normally can selectively keep from passing through its cell wall rush right
in and seriously damage the cells. The moment that the cell wall is
properly reconstituted, the yeast can then regulate what goes in and out of
the cell. That is why we hesitate to recommend rehydration in wort or
must. Very dilute wort seems to be OK.

We recommend that the rehydrated yeast be added to the wort within 30
minutes. We have built into each cell a large amount of glycogen and
trehalose that give the yeast a burst of energy to kick off the growth
cycle when it is in the wort. It is quickly used up if the yeast is
rehydrated for more than 30 minutes. There is no damage done here if it is
not immediatly add to the wort. You just do not get the added benefit of
that sudden burst of energy. We also recommend that you attemperate the
rehydrated yeast to with in 15F of the wort before adding to the wort.
Warm yeast into a cold wort will cause many of the yeast to produce petite
mutants that will never grow or ferment properly and will cause them to
produce H2S. The attemperation can take place over a very brief period by
adding, in encrements, a small amount of the cooler wort to the rehydrated
yeast.

Many times we find that warm water is added to a very cold container that
drops the rehydrating water below the desired temperature.

Sometimes refrigerated, very cold, dry yeast is added directly to the warm
water with out giving it time to come to room temperature. The initial
water intering the cell is then cool.

How do many beer and wine makers have successful fermentations when they
ignore all the above? I believe that it is just a numbers game. Each gram
of Active Dry Yeast contains about 20 billion live yeast cells. If you
slightly damage the cells, they have a remarkable ability to recover in the
rich wort. If you kill 60% of the cell you still have 8 billion cells per
gram that can go on to do the job at a slower rate.

The manufacturer of Active Dry Beer Yeast would be remiss if they offered
rehydration instructions that were less than the very best that their data
indicated.

One very important factor that the distributor and beer maker should keep
in mind is that Active Dry Yeast is dormant or inactive and not inert, so
keep refrigerated at all times. Do not store in a tin roofed warehouse
that becomes an oven or on a window sill that gets equally hot.

Active Dry Yeast looses about 20% of its activity in a year when it is
stored at 75 F and only 4% when refrigerated.

The above overview of rehydration should tell you that there is a very best
way to rehydrate. It should also tell you where you are safe in adapting
the rehydration procedure to fit your clients.

Clayton Cone.

There is no doubt that there CAN be great benefits and re hydrating dry yeast... I just believe that for someone just getting into brewing it can be detrimental when not done correcty... I use dry yeast unhydrated, smack packs with and without starters. All my beers come out fine with the rip and pitch method. Whatever works for you works for you... Cheers and thanks for sharing the Doc's inf

UPDATE: I repitched (dry) yesterday and today it's bubbling along fine.

Thanks for all the advice! I didn't mean to stir up a sh*tstorm about rehydration/not, but everyone learns in the process, I suppose. I sure did.

Seems like this whole thing is trial and error, hopefully making fewer errors as one goes along. I have my notes for the next batch...

Glad everything worked out ...

Very happy for you! Sorry, for the expanded aside. Perhaps one of the best things you could take away from this is good procedure is paramount. Evidently (time will tell), you had good sanitation practices. A lot of newbs rush the process and make mistakes, because they think they need to get the yeast in wort as fast as possible. It's better to take your time and make sure you follow your brew plan (assuming you make one) and do things right. It's a good thing to get your yeast in the wort, so as they out number other wort preditors and to close the wort off to unwanted guests, but with good sanitation practices it should not be a huge concern.

Bierliebhaber said:

Very happy for you! Sorry, for the expanded aside. Perhaps one of the best things you could take away from this is good procedure is paramount. Evidently (time will tell), you had good sanitation practices. A lot of newbs rush the process and make mistakes, because they think they need to get the yeast in wort as fast as possible. It's better to take your time and make sure you follow your brew plan (assuming you make one) and do things right. It's a good thing to get your yeast in the wort, so as they out number other wort preditors and to close the wort off to unwanted guests, but with good sanitation practices it should not be a huge concern.

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+1 very sound advice.

With dry yeast, especially this early on, there is no harm tossing in a fresh yeast pack. it is really cheap and a great way to not have to worry.

If the water was too hot then yes, you would have killed all of the yeast. If after 72hr there is no foam (krausen) on top of the wort, then pitch extra yeast. Just sprinkle it straight on top.

Good to hear!!

OK, so my Sierra Pale Ale has been in the bottle about two weeks after about ten days in primary. I tried one the other night and the smell, taste and color were good, but it lacked body and sufficient carbonation, and also had a slightly bitter aftertaste.

I realize it's too young at this point, but as a nube have to ask if the carbonation process will continue and the aftertaste mellow out over time...

petermac said:

OK, so my Sierra Pale Ale has been in the bottle about two weeks after about ten days in primary. I tried one the other night and the smell, taste and color were good, but it lacked body and sufficient carbonation, and also had a slightly bitter aftertaste.

I realize it's too young at this point, but as a nube have to ask if the carbonation process will continue and the aftertaste mellow out over time...

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Totally will carb more. Totally will mellow out more.

10 days in primary is pretty short. 3 weeks is common, and helps it mellow out before you stick it in the bottle. Anything with strong hops takes a few weeks to smooth and meld together. Remember how it tastes now and how it tasted in the hydro samples, as it will be useful to gauge how your future beers will taste when they reach those stages.