enough yeast?

[BrewingViking]

hey guys. i brewed my honey lemon summer ale last night. when i went to pitch the yeast, white labs california ale, the yeast exploded all over the kitchen and me. i did get some into the bucket. i didnt think it was enough so i just went out and got the white labs san diego super yeast. when i went to pitch i noticed a krausen. not a lot but some. it's only been 18hrs. should i pitch the new yeast?

SG was 1.055
the grain bill was only 2-row with some wildflower honey. and i also used yeast energizer and nutrient.

 

[Clementine]

The quick answer is you need 185BYC (Billion Yeast Cells) for optimum pitching rate (10MYC/ml) you pitched 100 BYC at best minus the explosion and viability of the yeast. So San Diego has very similar profile to 001 and would be a good choice. However most of the cell multiplication is already complete if you aerated well the yeast should have recovered some of their numbers and adding 100 Billion more cells isn't going to do much if all the O2 is gone. That said it is probably best to throw them in just to make you feel better and their will be some multiplication going on even this late in the game. If you only shook the wort in the first place I would be tempted to give it a rouse again (care for sanitary procedures), O2 in the first 24hrs is OK but you are getting close.

Clem

 

[BrewingViking]

thanks for the info. i just pitched it now. and re-shook the bucket. see how it comes out.

 

[Jayman931]

I had a similar situation happen....I opend the Vial and it was like it was carbonated....I think I got about half of my vial in the carboy....Its has been 14 hours and I haven't seen any signs of fermenting...

 

[Clementine]

I had a similar situation happen....I opend the Vial and it was like it was carbonated....I think I got about half of my vial in the carboy....Its has been 14 hours and I haven't seen any signs of fermenting...

What was your OG and volume? Obviously no starter. Even if fermenting starts you are not out of the woods yet! They may give up before they are finished fermenting leaving you at the dreaded 1020, too sweet to bottle and drink too low to add O2 and repitch. So best to make a starter aerate and pitch before they eat too much of the wort making adding O2 a difficult decision.

Clem

 

[Jayman931]

What was your OG and volume? Obviously no starter. Even if fermenting starts you are not out of the woods yet! They may give up before they are finished fermenting leaving you at the dreaded 1020, too sweet to bottle and drink too low to add O2 and repitch. So best to make a starter aerate and pitch before they eat too much of the wort making adding O2 a difficult decision.

Clem

Sorry for the slow reply..MY OG was 1.070...not to long after I made that post the fermentation started....and boy did it go....I first started with a air lock...in a few hours it was obvious that my carboy was not going to handle the fermentation...I didn't have any hose to make a blow off so I decided I would get up in the a.m and go to home depot and get some 5/8" hose to make a blow off....I loosened the top of the air lock cause it was obvious it wasn't gonna handle the fermentation and I didn't want it to blow. I woke up and there was only about 5 inches of bubbles above and out of the airlock...went to home depot made my blow off and everything is great now...it is still fermenting. (so its been going good for about 72 hours...I can tell it is slowing) Everything looks great...I'm already addicted...It smells so good (although you can tell its "green")

 

[shafferpilot]

success... pitching rate comes into play more with really high gravity brews and especially lagers. but fairly normal ales are REALLY hard to kill with iffy yeast situations.

Button that thing up as soon as you can and be extremely patient and you'll have awesome beer in the end... and for god's sake don't start monkeying with it by taking gravity readings every day or dosing it with a bunch of crap thinking you're helping. Don't put it in secondary while it's still foggy looking, don't cold crash it, don't put gelatin in it or any of that garbage. just put the airlock on as soon as possible and leave it alone

 

[Jayman931]

So Brewviking...how did it turn out?

 

[BrewingViking]

So Brewviking...how did it turn out?

it turned out really good. i have it conditioning right now. it seems that the san diego super yeast took over. i got an attenuation of around 85%.

 

[Clementine]

Sweet! gotta get me some of that stuff... Anyone feel like shipping some to Hawaii or perhaps coming out and bringing me some, free accommodation on my couch!

Clem