Forgot to make starter - should I add more now?

[tudou]

Made a beer that's about O.G. 1.074 last night. Pitched some White Labs Burton Ale yeast but forgot to make a starter. It's fermenting just now, but very slowly by the looks of things. Should I bung in a pack of S-04 or would that just make things worse?

If it helps, I'm brewing Twelfth Night at Toad Hall which does actually say to add a pack of yeast nutrient and S-04 after primary fermentation, but now I'm worried that when I get to that stage the yeast won't be able to do much.

 

[Queequeg]

Don't pitch US-04, generally you want to keep to a single yeast strain.

The risk of under pitching is that either the fermentation will stall and you'll have to repitch or your'll get an infection that competes with the yeast. But neither might happen and you might be lucky.

That said it is harder to repitch once the brew is half way through because your'll pitching to beer and not wort.

My advice would be get some more of the wlabs strain and nutirent and make a starter, repitch as soon as possible.

 

[atreid]

Under that logic he's better off pitching S-04 right NOW than taking forever to make a Burton yeast starter and then pitching. By that time you'd have all the side effects from underpitching.

From memory you'll end up with a dryer beer if you add S04 though. Something in the range of 5% more attenuation... but since the recipe adds it at the end anyway, it shouldn't matter that much.

Yeast blends aren't that uncommon. Some of my best creations were primary fermented with 2 strains. You'll still enjoy some of the estery Burton profile even if you add S04.

I would just rehydrate the dry yeast and pitch then very gently swirl once to mix but I wouldn't reoxygenate the wort at this point. I'd add new yeast as soon as possible... after 12 hours from original pitching I'm not even sure it's worth it anymore.

 

[Queequeg]

Well that would depend on how quickly OP could get the yeast. If he/she has a LHBS then he/she could pitch the same day and be ready tommorrow.

If it would take a week to get the yeast then its goes without saying that it's not an option.

 

[tudou]

Getting more yeast would take at least a further 3 days (weekend at the moment, and no local brewshops here - all mail order).

As it happens, it looks like it's kicked off this morning and it's bubbling away quite nicely. I will keep the temperature maybe up at 21/22 C just to give it a good boost.

As to the recipe suggesting adding Safale plus yeast nutrient after primary fermentation, does this sound like it would actually work? I haven't come across anyone who has actually tried the recipe yet. Cheers guys.

 

[atreid]

How high ABV is this supposed to get? When I looked around I didn't find S04 to have such high alcool tolerance... I'm wondering if it will perform that well when pitched/chocked into an already high ABV beer....

I might be inclined to prepare a 1 cup extract beer (with nutrients) to get it going. Not a real starter. Just oxygenate at first like a beer and pitch the S04. Then fermentation only (no oxygenated starter propagation). When you reach high krausen, pitch in your beer. You get highly active yeast already in fermentation mode. Best way to make sure yeast survives.

Still... not sure how useful it all is... check your FG at the end...

 

[tudou]

The ultimate ABV is supposed to be 10% but the recipe isn't clear whether that is achieved by doing that double ferment.

 

[atreid]

Honestly I think their recipe is pretty flawed...

They say to mash all that grain in only 16 liters of water... That's pretty ridiculous... Was that really a mash or was it mud paste? That's too thick.... A simple entry into BeerSmith says OG at least 1.090 and you only got 1.076... You know why? Not enough water...

They don't even specify which Crystal malt... 10, 20, 40, 60?

It's fairly well documented that S04 won't tolerate 10% ABV...

And if you mash at 67C, why in hell would they tell you to sparge at 62C....? Should be more in the range of 76, especially after a 90 minutes mash...

I don't know what others think... Maybe I'm missing the whole point...

Personally if I had to add a post-primary yeast to a 10% in hope to dry it out, I would add US05...at least it will survive...

 

[Flipadelphia]

How do you forget to make a starter? That is a couple day long process to complete.... It's not like forgetting to add a 30 min hop addition until 20 min

 

[tudou]

Atreid: I don't think it's a recipe that is supposed to be followed dead-on, it's just a guide. The mash-sparge schedule is a little odd but hey-ho, everyone does things slightly differently - maybe this is just how this guy did it, I can't really get worked up about it.

The volume of mash water did look a little low, so I added an extra litre or two but probably not quite enough. I have a spare packet of S-05 around so I could use that instead of the S-04.

Flipadelphia: It wasn't so much that I forgot, I just didn't think to do one. I've never made a starter before because I've never needed to (I haven't brewed a high gravity beer before).

 

[Flipadelphia]

Flipadelphia: It wasn't so much that I forgot, I just didn't think to do one. I've never made a starter before because I've never needed to (I haven't brewed a high gravity beer before).

Ahh. Yeah I did the same when I made my first imperial a couple years ago. Mistakes happen, don't worry about it.

 

[sikkingj]

Tudor, have you brewed this beer yet?

What does it taste like? It looks interesting and I might give it a whirl.

 

[tudou]

sikkingj, I have made it and it's now fermenting like a BEAST. Krausen... krausen everywhere.

Post-boil I had a wee glass and it had a lovely Christmassy taste to it, the ginger being a nice under-tone but not too spicey. Will let you know how it tastes once it's finished fermenting.