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Yeah, but your comment was "Your post & your sig line both are comical."

Which sounds kind of dickish, IMHO.

Anyway... for real, I'm out. Again, for better or worse, I've said all I came to say.

e8a5w9s.gif
 
slym2none said:
Yeah, but your comment was "Your post & your sig line both are comical."

Which sounds kind of dickish, IMHO.

Anyway... for real, I'm out. Again, for better or worse, I've said all I came to say.
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Ok.

You probably shouldn't have funny things in your sig if you're gonna get all dramatic when someone makes a comment. I didn't mean any harm by it.

For the record, I wish people would stop parroting the advice that 48 hour+ lag times are ok. Just because some dude had a 72 hour lag time once and the beer tasted "pretty good" doesn't mean it's good brewing advice or practice.

>24 hours means something is not right; oxygen, yeast mishandling, temperature, wort composition, etc. While effects on the finished beer might be minimal there's a problem in either the process or yeast.
 
motobrewer said:
Ok.

For the record, I wish people would stop parroting the advice that 48 hour+ lag times are ok. Just because some dude had a 72 hour lag time once and the beer tasted "pretty good" doesn't mean it's good brewing advice or practice.

>24 hours means something is not right; oxygen, yeast mishandling, temperature, wort composition, etc. While effects on the finished beer might be minimal there's a problem in either the process or yeast.
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Tell it like it is. The longer it sits without taking off, the greater the chance the wild yeasts that are already in it have a chance to take over. >24 hours bad. <12 hours good
 
I never got the notion that anyone was saying 72 hours was good, only that it was possible that it could take that long. Doesn't matter much for someone who lives at least 60 miles from the nearest re-supply source. I do plan to try to keep an extra supply of S-04 around after my next mail order though just in case. I still cannot see me giving Nottingham another chance at this point, but I suppose it could happen.
 
RmikeVT said:
Hey man, lots of comments, but have you checked your thermometer to make sure it is accurate? I have had dial thermometers be off by 40* before.
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This was probably meant for the OP but, I check mine regularly.
These four seem to be pretty closely matched and I know the Fluke meter to be accurate.

ThermCal.jpg
 
I recently had under-attenuation issues with Nottingham yeast. I had 3 packs, 2 from the same lot, 1 from a different lot. I made a 10gal (2 x 5gal) batch of 1.030 OG Gratzer and pitched a different lot of rehydrated yeast into each 5gal. One of the 5gal batches took off pretty quick, the other one showed no activity after 48-72hrs, I ended up transferring krausen from the active batch to the other beer in order to get it going.

More recently I used the other packet of yeast in a 1.040 OG pale ale. The beer ended up sweet and under-attenuated. It appears to me that the issues I had were lot specific. Of course I didn't write down the lot# and date of the packets that gave me problems......:smack:
 
My thoughts on this.
1) Notty is a beast and I have used it a lot. Never had a problem with it.
But I have noticed that one a few occasions that if the ferment temp is down low 57-ish that it can be really timid in appearance. Not often, but it can happen.
2) Check the Danstar/Lallemand website cuz I seem to remember that there was a recall of sorts because of some bad lot numbers.
3) this one should be #1, but I just thought of it. 72 hours is very rare for Notty, so if #2 is wrong then I have to agree that something is wrong.
Bad rehydration, way off temps, or perhaps something that I am forgetting.

Nottingham is a monster yeast and very rarely does it crap the bed like this
 
Moto - did you use spring water or distilled water to hydrate the yeast? I've heard of distilled/RO water causing tonicity issues when hydrating dried yeast.
 
aprichman said:
Moto - did you use spring water or distilled water to hydrate the yeast? I've heard of distilled/RO water causing tonicity issues when hydrating dried yeast.
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I use tap. Med-low hardness. Should have enough to rehydrate properly.
 
motobrewer said:
I use a thermopen. I haven't cal'd it in awhile but I trust its close.
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Didn't realize you weren't a new brewer. Sorry, should have realized that. I see threads on here all the time when newbies are trying to figure out why they on got 30% efficiency in their first mash and it seems pretty typical they are using the dial thermometer that came with their kit, which as we all know, work a few times and then lose calibration.
 
motobrewer said:
i let the rehydrate cool down at room temp. i don't know what the temp is exactly (I should probably record for future reference) but it wasn't 90F.
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According to an email from Danstar:
"Our technical manager suggests that you don't go longer than 30 minutes after the start of rehydration before pitching the yeast into wort as the yeast needs nutrients. If there is a delay you could actually add more wort to the rehydration water to give the yeast something to eat while you are waiting to pitch it, so long as it isn't too hot."

That could be contributing to your problem. Also, the unknown yeast temp at pitching.
 
lumpher said:
i stopped using notty years ago because it's so unpredictable. when i first started brewing, it was great stuff every time. then they had that run of dead/lagging yeast where they had to pull it off the shelves, and it was out for a while. when it came back, many lhbs's, including 2 here, stopped carrying it, even. i've switched to us-05 and s-04 as my go-to yeasts, and have never had a problem with them
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I remember the Big Notty Scare of 2010. They were punching small holes in the packets when stamping their date codes on the sachet, and consequently the yeast would do all sorts of bad stuff when used. I got bit too. I'll never use the stuff again, though there is probably not an issue now.
 
Regarding Moto's sitch: If an ale yeast hasn't taken off by day 2/3, I'm pitching more yeast. I wouldn't hesitate. For example, I always brew on Sunday mornings, and I expect to see krausen on Monday. If it's still not there by Tuesday evening, I'd add new yeast. I give lagers an extra day, but same thing. I've probably had ales take 3 days to get going, though, and end up fine. So I wouldn't say the sky is falling, but yeast is relatively cheap.

I hope you guys keep a few extra yeast packets in your fridge/cabinet. There's no downside to adding more, the cost is minimal.
 
laradactyl said:
Has anyone else noticed that both motobrewer and I purchased the Nottingham yeast that is in question from the same vendor within a couple of weeks of each other?

Maybe Northern Brewer was supplied with a bad batch?
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I brewed a blonde a few months ago into which I pitched rehydrated Notty that I bought from my LHBS. It took upwards of 36 hours to see activity in the airlock. I have a 30L Speidel, so I can't see inside; thus I go on airlock activity as the indicator of fermentation. The seal on the Speidel is really good, so that's a pretty reliable way of determining whether something is happening or not.
 
to close this out -

notty eventually started. ~60 hours from pitching. I'm going to stay away from notty for awhile unless I realize some huge flaw in my yeast handling process.
 
Think of how many successful batches are under notty's belt.

In the end it's either you, northern, ups/fedex or danstar. Danstar seems the least likely in that set of choices.
 
angrybits said:
Think of how many successful batches are under notty's belt.

In the end it's either you, northern, ups/fedex or danstar. Danstar seems the least likely in that set of choices.
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Okay, let's assume it was me. So for the sake of this discussion, let's suppose that for whatever outrageous reason a person wanted to pitch his yeast today, but did not want it to start fermenting for 56-60 hours. Assume a wort temp of 70 degrees F at pitching then cooling to 64 degrees and holding it there. How would one accomplish the 60 hour delay?

I am not trying to be argumentative at all here just looking for answers as I am admittedly new to brewing and would like to find out what I could have done wrong to cause the delay. I posted my procedures back at post number 33 in this thread.
 
laradactyl said:
Okay, let's assume it was me.
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I wasn't necessarily saying it was you doing the mishandling, just venturing a guess that it's not the people who make the stuff. My apologies if it came off differently--I was sitting at a bar on my mobile. (Lone Rider's pale is a damn fine beer, while we are on the subject.)

Any one of the people who handle the yeast between the factory and you could have done something stupid, so dismissing a whole strain of workhorse yeast seems premature. That was more the point I was getting at. If you like to use it, try sourcing from elsewhere and see if you get a different result.

Cheers!
 
More follow-up:

Post ferment gravity was a ~2-3 points higher than normal. This beer usually finishes at 1.013-ish and this one is done at 1.016. Not that it's a bad thing.

however, pH was considerably higher in the post-ferment beer than normal, 4.54 vs 4.0 in previous batches. I attribute this to a weak growth phase and could be a cause of extended the lag phase.
 
Enough people have had notty fail, even after the 2010 recall that I don't think it's user error, or at least every instance. It's failed twice for me (never had that problem with any other yeast I've used, liquid or dry), and I won't be buying it ever again. I'm glad that it works for other people, and I would happily drink their homebrew with notty pitched, but it's just not worth it to me personally.
 
The first time it failed for me back in april (same exact beer) I recorded pH after 24 hours - 5.08. This indicated to me absolutely no growth was happening as 5.08 is knockout pH and during growth yeast should be reducing pH. At that time I pitched US-04. Post-ferment was 3.96, and the beer turned out really well.
 
I'll add my recent experience w/ Nottingham. I made NB's Brick Warmer Red on 9/27. The OG was supposed to be 1.062, I measured it at 1.061, which is ok for me. I got the wort temp down to ~70° F and pitched my package of Nottingham (with an expiration date of January 2015) dry not re-hydrated, into the carboy in my basement which stays between 65-68° F. It took off like a rocket in under 18 hours. It's still in the primary now and I haven't taken another gravity reading yet. I plan on taking one tonight when I get home. So no bad experience with Nottingham for me so far.
 
Vapatriot if you don't have your fermentor In a germ chamber or swamp cooler your going to hate that yeast. Notti doesn't like being in the 70s. And your basement won't stop it from getting there. I love that yeast but keep it around 64 or less
 
Just to document - my Irish Red was approximated to finish at 1.013 using Notty. It hit 1.008, hopefully not too dry for the style.

:)
 
Maybe the recipe calculator was off?

*shrug*

I am not too worried about it, really. I imagine the beer will still be good.
 
in my opinion I'd prefer to err on the side of dry. overly sweet beers are just undrinkable to me.

if it was all-grain i'd suspect mash temp.
 
motobrewer said:
in my opinion I'd prefer to err on the side of dry. overly sweet beers are just undrinkable to me.

if it was all-grain i'd suspect mash temp.
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Yeah, even malty beers aren't great when they are too-malty, and too sweet.

Oh, and BTW - it was an extract brew.

;)
 
That Irish Red which took 56+ hours to start has now been in the fermenting fridge for 20 days so, as bottling day is approaching I took a gravity reading last night. It is down from 1.044 to 1.011, If it is the same tomorrow I will bottle it then or Saturday.

The sample I pulled was very tasty according to my radiation damaged taste buds. I'll get a second opinion when one of my brother in laws shows up. :)

NB_IRA_SG.jpg
 
So, I "washed" (kinda, but not really) this last batch of Nottingham, see if it is any different than the first batch I "washed" - that was the batch that each generation took longer & longer until I hit the 68-hour mark & said "**** this" and didn't use it anymore. This was from a fresh half-pack that I used once on an Irish red, went into a hoppy strong ale this time. Irish red took less than 12 hours to kick off, might have been 8 - I went to bed a couple hours after pitching, and next morning, it was rockin'. This washed batch, 2nd gen, took 36-38 hours to kick off. I pitched enough for 5-6 gallons into a 2.5 gallon batch.

*sigh*

I ain't doin' this yeast-wash-thing no more... I'll just use a half-pack of fresh each time.

:(
 

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