Safale US-05

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Hollers

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Hi all, brewing my first all grain and after 7 hours my Carboy is barely bubbling. I'm used to more activity. I mashed and boiled ingredients for a milk stout, boiled 2 cups of water for 10 minutes, let it cool to 90 degrees F and added the dry yeast to the water to rehydrate, covered it and left it for about an hour (stirred as well). Got the temp of my wort down to about 78F, pitched the yeast and aerated thoroughly. While there is some activity, it doesn't look like a hurricane in my Carboy like it usually does. I boiled a pound of lactose sugar but believe it's unfermentable, besides the wort should have enough for the yeast to ferment. My wort is at about 74F, and my OG is 1.056 so everything seems to be right except the activity! Should I pitch more yeast and hope for the best? Add honey or sugar?
 
amount of airlock activity is not a concrete indicator of fermentation. 7 hours is early to start worrying if your yeast are not working. Give it more time, then measure the gravity.
 
Us-05 tends to be a slow starter for me and I use the manufacturer's instructions for rehydration. At about 24 hours there's a decent krausen and by 48 it's ripping along.
 
74° F is kind of a high fermentation temperature unless your doing a saison. Mid to low 60°s for ales will help prevent off flavors of aggressive fermentations.
A swamp cooler will help get your wort temp down. The fermentation itself can raise the wort temperature 3° to 8°.
 
Thanks, it's picking up, building kreusen and more activity. I put a fan on it to lower the temp to about 71F. Looks like the yeast is just a slow starter and probably happier at the cooler temps.
 
Looks like the yeast is just a slow starter and probably happier at the cooler temps.

Probably. I use Safale-05, and while I didn't have any issues w/ fermentation starting slowly, buy day 2 my Pale Ale I'm fermenting was gurgling like crazy, thought there was a slam death metal vocalist in my computer room! And this happened when the ambient room temp was ~60, so yeah maybe that's this yeast's "sweet spot".
 
Thanks, it's picking up, building kreusen and more activity. I put a fan on it to lower the temp to about 71F. Looks like the yeast is just a slow starter and probably happier at the cooler temps.

Having a quick, exciting ferment isn't the goal at all. Good-tasting beer is. It's perfectly fine for a yeast to go through a 12-24 hour lag/reproduction period before you see the airlock gurgling.

If you can get the beer temp down to 65*F, that seems to be the right temp range if you want achieve a good clean ferment with US-05 and no off-flavors. After keeping it there 4-5 days, let it come up on its own to 68-70*F to finish and clean up.

Oh, you can cut the amount of rehydration water in half (1 cup) next time. 2 cups is a bit much.
 
As others have said, its a relatively slow starter; 7 hours is nothing for US-05, you're not going to get peak activity till around 24-48 hours. And keep it in the 60s. I try to pitch around 65 and let it rise on its own in a room temperature environment.
 
grimstuff said:
As others have said, its a relatively slow starter; 7 hours is nothing for US-05, you're not going to get peak activity till around 24-48 hours. And keep it in the 60s. I try to pitch around 65 and let it rise on its own in a room temperature environment.
+1, US 05 is pretty much my house yeast for the most part. I really like the result of the strain and consider 1056 it's liquid brother.
 
US-05 is a good, clean strain and does really well in the 62-68 range. Patience. The advice in this thread is solid.

Also, waiting an hour after rehydrating and before pitching is a little much. No matter what, the yeast will go through a lag phase and that is not a bad thing. The nutrients that the yeast are packaged with is enough to last about 30 minutes and gives them a good energy boost, but if that isn't followed up with a timely introduction to the wort, they lose that boost of energy leading to a bit more lag. They are still alive though, and you have nothing to worry about.
 
Thanks all,it's looking good now. I guess I've been brewing higher gravity beers, Belgians and IPAs that end up over 7ABV so it may have been my unfamiliarity with the activity level. It's definitely active now, it's just not kicking kreusen out of my blow off tube like the yeast strains I'm used to have.
 
US-05 is my go to yeast for all ipas and it is a notorious slow starter. 24 hours it is usually going pretty well. Low to mid 60's is a perfect temperature for this yeast.
 
Ok so I took gravity readings on:
Day 5:1.036 @70F
Day 7: 1.038 @70F

OG was 1.057 @73.5F

What gives? I guess it's possible I was off and the day 5 reading was the same as day 7 but I know fermentation can't be done at 1.038...can it?
 
One (or both) of those readings is off. You are also checking at day 5 and 7 - that is too soon. Rouse the yeast if it seems to be settling out and wait a week. It shouldn't be done at that gravity.
 
As mentioned above, you're checking too soon. First time you check should be about 2 weeks out. Remember, US-05 is a slow starter. I've never had, or expected it to be, done at 7 days. That's crazy talk. No need to check the gravity so soon. Just let it sit and do its thing for at least another week. Then check again. If the FG is still high, rouse by GENTLY swirling the bucket for a few minutes, or by using a sanitized spoon. And try to lower the temp, that's getting just a bit high for this yeast. Try not to get above 72.
 
As mentioned above, you're checking too soon. First time you check should be about 2 weeks out. Remember, US-05 is a slow starter. I've never had, or expected it to be, done at 7 days. That's crazy talk. No need to check the gravity so soon. Just let it sit and do its thing for at least another week. Then check again. If the FG is still high, rouse by GENTLY swirling the bucket for a few minutes, or by using a sanitized spoon. And try to lower the temp, that's getting just a bit high for this yeast. Try not to get above 72.

I agree with most of this, but lowering the temp when it seems to be stalling is the wrong answer - that will just encourage the yeast to stall out more. 70 is fine after the initial vigorous fermentation starts to slow down.
 
boydster said:
One (or both) of those readings is off. You are also checking at day 5 and 7 - that is too soon. Rouse the yeast if it seems to be settling out and wait a week. It shouldn't be done at that gravity.
How do I rouse the yeast?
 
Just gently swirl the carboy to help get the yeast back into suspension without splashing.
 
I agree with most of this, but lowering the temp when it seems to be stalling is the wrong answer - that will just encourage the yeast to stall out more. 70 is fine after the initial vigorous fermentation starts to slow down.

Lowering the temperature isn't meant to be a solution to the stall, that's just a general tip for this strain. Besides, I've never experienced an actual stall over 2 degrees. I'm convinced that what most people describe as a "stall" is just the yeast doing it's thing in a less-than-completely predictable way.
 
05 has been my go to for the last year. Had some really great beers turn out with it. I boil my water and try and hydrate my yeast below 70F since that's the temp it will be working in. Used it twice in the last month and both took a little time taking off (garage is holding at a constant 62-64F) but eventually came around.
 
Crazy idea here. Rather than rehydrate the yeast with hot water, why not pitch the yeast say around 90 degrees and toss your beer someplace nice and cool like a basement. By the time the yeast really gets going the wort will be down to ambient temp of the basement. I've done this my last few batches of s05 with good results. With kids and honey-dos, any time I can shave off brew day helps to keep SWMBO happy.
 
Rehydrating in wort still causes osmotic shock, regardless of temperature, because the cells can't regulate what goes in or out until after they are properly reconstituted. Imagine if your body couldn't regulate sugars at all and you had a funnel with syrup being poured down your throat during that period - your body wouldn't be able to handle it. Yeast is a single cell; dealing with a sudden onslaught of hyperglycemia if you choose to rehydrate in wort will still cause up to 50% of cells to die, regardless of temperature. Plus, most off flavors are produced during the first 24 hours after pitching, so pitching it at a high temp and allowing it to cool overnight or over the next day is allowing flavor compounds an opportunity to develop that, in using a clean yeast like 05, you are probably trying to limit. Granted, the Chico strain is more forgiving than some strains like Belgian or English strains, but still, why open yourself up to the chance of off flavors if you have the control to avoid it from the beginning?

Hands-down, the best practice is to rehydrate your yeast in warm (~100F) water and cool slowly to pitching temp while your wort is also cooled to pitching temp. This gives you maximum yeast viability and vitality while also guaranteeing the least chance for off-flavors. And it's easy. You can cool your wort first, add the yeast to a bowl of warm water, and after it has been reconstituted, slowly add the wort in increments to bring the yeast to wort temp before pitching... the last step, even with 3 or 4 wort additions, will take all of 15-20 minutes. How long is your brew day? How much do you enjoy your beer when it is ready to drink? Is an extra 15-20 minutes really a tall price to pay to give your yeast the best chance to make great beer? Pull another pint while you wait and ponder how great this batch will be.

Unless it makes waves with SWMBO... You must appease SWMBO. Disregard all of what I just said if you are doing so for the sake of keeping the peace in your marriage. Yeast doesn't love you. It doesn't care about you at all. It loves sugar. You love your wife. And beer. But the beer doesn't ask you to appease it. So you must appease SWMBO. Beer is easy, and yeast doesn't care. SWMBO does. That is all.
 
Day 14 and I'm at the same gravity reading...I swirled the wort to try and reactivate the yeast. If nothing happens by tomorrow, would anyone recommend re pitching yeast?
 
Crazy idea here. Rather than rehydrate the yeast with hot water, why not pitch the yeast say around 90 degrees and toss your beer someplace nice and cool like a basement. By the time the yeast really gets going the wort will be down to ambient temp of the basement. I've done this my last few batches of s05 with good results. With kids and honey-dos, any time I can shave off brew day helps to keep SWMBO happy.

I seriously doubt that you can do this without producing some significant off-flavors. It takes several hours to cool that much liquid just sitting in a basement. By the time it equalizes to the basement temp, it's already gotten funky.

I have a buddy who did this same thing on a batch of blonde ale when he tried to cool a full boil in an ice bath. It was cooling slowly, he panicked about his rehydrated yeast sitting too long and pitched prematurely. He immediately put it in his controlled fermenter chamber to cool. He said it was so bad that he wouldn't let me or anyone else taste it.
 
What is your current gravity? You had krausen before, I thought, like a week and a half ago... That means something fermented.
 
I'm still at 1.036 with the hydrometer, temp is 69F. About the same as 7 days ago. My OG was 1.056 so I've definitely had fermentation, just not enough to call it finished I'd thought!
 
What was your mash temp, grain bill, and how much lactose and/or maltodextrin did you use?
 
6 lb Maris otter
1 lb flaked barley
1 lb C80
12 oz carafa special 2
6 oz roasted barley

Mashed @ 158F for 60mins

Boiled for 60 min adding 1 lb lactose sugar and an oz of hops
 
High temperature mashing along with a high percentage of non-base malts such as the roasted ones, can lead to a higher FG but yours seems stuck. Maybe you drowned the yeast with too long a wait in the swimming pool. Is your tap water chlorinated? Yeast love that chlorine in the pool.
 
Try swirling the fermenter to get more yeast back into suspension and then warm it up, perhaps to the upper 70's. You might get the yeast excited again.
 
There are no doubt a lot of unfermentable sugars in there, but your gravity still seems too high to be complete. I agree that warming and rousing the yeast is probably the best idea.
 
Thanks all - so no one would just pitch another packet of safale 05 in at this point?
 
Nope. There is plenty of yeast in there, and it is already acclimated to the hostile environment it is swimming in. New yeast would likely just sink to the bottom and stay dormant.

Think of it thus way: If the beer was an acceptable environment to toss new yeast into, you wouldn't have a stalled fermentation right now.
 
Is the beer clear or is yeast still suspended in it?

Maybe your mash thermometer is off. 158F is fine but 162f could lead to bad things.

Maybe your hydrometer is off. Does it measure what it should. 1.000 for water?

Does the beer taste Ok?

My guess is you mashed too high and there isn't enough fermentable sugars.
 
Hydrometer is fine, I have two thermometers so temp is OK. It tastes fine and it's clear as far as I can tell - it is a stout so it's hard to tell! I tried swirling with no results so I just sprinkled another packet of 05 on the top...I'll let you all know what happens.
 
Whenever I use lactose my gravity finishes 10 points higher that it normally would.
So if you final gravity is expected to be 1.016 it would finish at about 1.026.

I make a sweet stout with lactose and use Safale US-05 or WLP-001 and final gravity is always around 1.025.

Just my 2c :drunk:
 
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