12 days and still fermenting - Two yeasts

[steber]

So I made a boo boo in my brewing. It's been awhile since I brewed and I had some old yeast sitting around. Wasn't sure of the viability of the yeast but used a 2l yeast starter on a stir plate for 48 hours. The first yeast was pacman yeast which i prefer at 65 degrees. After 72 hours there was no active signs of fermentation. So I panicked and threw in a second yeast, as pacman was not available I opted for a wlp001, but somehow got wlp051 instead from LHBS. Silly me didn't read the package until after I pitched the vial. Fermentation started to rock 36 hours later! :rockin:

We're now 12 days later and I'm still seeing active action in my airlock. Which doesn't mean much I know, but all my beers tend to finish up within a few days. So I feared I had an infection from a wild yeast strain which was causing the over active airlock activity. Since activity means jack, I pulled a reading today and i'm sitting at 1.045 with bubbles every two seconds.

The beer is yoopers IPA Extract version with a few minor tweaks. Ended up with 6 gallons in the fermenter at roughly 1.080. I'm currently at 1.045 and chugging.

I guess my question, or needed confidence is, did i mess up? The two yeast strands are greatly different in temp range. The WLP051 is listed for a much higher temp range 70-75 where pacman's max is 70. So my obvious attempts here are to bring it to 70 degrees.


Although my feelings are the pacman yeast WAS dead or else it would have brought the OG down below 1.045 and that the WLP051 is SLLOOOOWWWLLYY chomping away under the below preferred temps.

OR the pacman worked at a stressed out underpitched rate while the 051 was sleeping.

Thoughts? Besides RDWHAHB?

 

[dobe12]

There's really no way to tell which yeast is and isn't working... at least at this point. Just keep an eye on it and take another gravity reading in a few days.

Also, the "70 max" for pacman isn't really a "max". It's really just the high end of the recommended fermentation range. If your temps got above 70 it would still do it's thing... it would actually REALLY do its thing with higher temps, but you probably wouldn't like the outcome.

So, I'd personally still keep it under 70 and just give it more time. I don't use white labs yeast, but just read up on 051 and seems like it is not a high attenuator. Sounds like your beer will finish with a higher FG than expected. Having said that, it should still get well under 1.045.

Yes RDWHAHB!

 

[BBL_Brewer]

Well, WLP051 is a lower attenuating strain, so you might be right, the pacman might not have made it. You couldn't tell from the starter whether it did anything at all? With an OG that high, if the pacman was dead, you might have a problem on your hands. The beer might finish a little higher than you want and it might be a tad sweet. I would just give it some time and see what happens. If it gets stuck, then maybe think about adding a higher attenuating yeast to bring it down. Looks like pacman is available again if you want to order some off the net. I usually get mine from Rebel brewer.

 

[steber]

The starter apeared to have had some activity. I deff had more than what I started with, and alot still in suspension, so I pitched the whole 2L. But I still feared i underpitched so i paniced and when I was looking for a sub for pacman WLP001 was what I WANTED. Don't know how I ended with 051. My theory was the whole underpitching thing -- Less guys doing more work = stress and off flavors so I added the 051 to add to the party. I'd really like this to finish much lower that 1.045. Which in reference to dobe, is why i'm raising the temps in hopes to help the lil guys along. Is pitching a third yeast going to do anything? I dont want to overpitch and introducing yeast in to an alcoholic substance doesn't seem like the cell walls will be acclimatized to the stress and just crap out.

 

[BBL_Brewer]

Is pitching a third yeast going to do anything? I dont want to overpitch and introducing yeast in to an alcoholic substance doesn't seem like the cell walls will be acclimatized to the stress and just crap out.

That's why I said you might as well wait and see what happens before you go dumping more yeast in there. If there's some viable pacman in there you should be ok.

 

[steber]

Well its 6 days later and now we're at 1.041. Way far off from where I expected it to be. Still some yeasties floating around on the top, the color has darkened out at this point. I still see some slight activity in the airlock. Maybe a few bubbles a minute. She tastes a bit sweet, but has mellowed out a bit from last week. Any suggestions? I'm not on any time constraints at this point and haven't taken any consecutive readings yet, but I'd like it to see it atleast try to get it under 1.03 if at all possible.

 

[steber]

Just for the record. I have a fresh pack of pacman on hand at the moment. I really didn't want to have to use it, but I was thinking of doing a 2L starter, canning off the starter for a future brew and pitch the other half in there to get some higher attenuating yeast into there. According to the the site, pacman works up to 12% abv, but im not sure how well its going to hold up when introduced right into a 5% environment. Also, incase any one is wondering this is yoopers IPA extract receipe that i'm working with. This by far is my biggest blunder in my brewing career.

 

[BBL_Brewer]

With extract you ought to be able to do better than 1.041. Pitching some more pacman might not hurt. I would pitch it at high krausen in hopes that the yeast will go strait to work and not even notice the 5%.

 

[steber]

Would halving the 2L starter (half bottled for later use,half into the wort) do the job or am I going to need the whole starter To get this thing moving again?

 

[F_R_O_G]

heating the wort up to 77F should help to get some points lower without effecting the taste. if that doesn't work you should do a force fermentation test

 

[BBL_Brewer]

Well, you don't want to add more oxygen at this point, so I would pitch as many cells as possible. I would still keep a little bit of it to make another starter though so you don't waste the whole thing.

 

[steber]

Sounds good, I'll pitch about 90% of it and step up the rest.

 

[steber]

heating the wort up to 77F should help to get some points lower without effecting the taste. if that doesn't work you should do a force fermentation test

I don't think testing will give me any more information then what I have. My yeast strain was dead then I pitched a yeast that wasn't able to attenuate with the higher gravity. Now I'm hoping to correct the problem with a proper strain of pacman, the original. Lesson learned: rushing is not worth the headache of correcting. My pipeline was dry as I haven't brewed in several months so I was eager to get back to things. This only ended up biting me in the arse and wasting time and money, along with tying up the fermenter. I'll dryhop this bugger to high heaven to mask any off flavors that may be stirred up from this blunder. I'm hoping pacman will bring the gravity down to hit a 9% abv and make this all worth it in the end.

 

[F_R_O_G]

I didn't realize how low of alcohol tolerance the WLP51 was. my thinking was that if you stirred up some of the yeast and heated it up a little you could get another %1ABV and that the strain was not the limiting factor.

I looked at the yeast your using and saw 4.75%ABV so ya, put the right yeast in and let me know how it turns out. I'm interested to get a feel how adding yeast to a already fermenting wort goes.

 

[steber]

I'm interested to get a feel how adding yeast to a already fermenting wort goes.

Trust me, You and me both!!! Haha when everything's said and done I'll let everyone know. 🍻

 

[steber]

OMG! Please pass the dunce hat this way! I'm a total NOOB. Remeber how I said it's been awhile since I've done any sort of brewing?!? Well you won't beleive my blunder of my blunder now, or maybe you will! So my "gravity" reading has been "stuck" at 1.040 for a few days now and I've been in a panic that its so high. Silly stupid me, I'm a complete nooob and totally forgot that you cant take any sort of reading with a refractometer after fermentation. Please pass the shot gun. LUCKILY I did not pitch my pack of pacman into the fermenter. (although I did make a starter) I'll be bottling the starter once it settles out. So atleast I have twice the cell count of pacman on hand!!!! Time to dry hop and get this blunder over with! Please if you ever meet me smack me over the head. BTW -- The final gravity Read through a hydrometer is 1.014!!!!!!!! Should be right around 9% abv if my calculations are correct.