Pitching on suds

[week0019]

My beers so far have turned out a little sweet. To tackle this, I'm going to mash my next batch a little cool and attempt to aerate more than usual to make sure the yeast can finish their job. To do this I plan to shake the heck out of the fermenter before pitching which I know will result in lots of foam/suds.

Can anyone that uses the shake the fermenter method to aerate tell me if you just pitch on the suds, stir to clear them away, or other plan that works that would be great. I don't imagine you want to leave the yeast sitting on a cloud of suds.

This will be dry yeast by the way.

Thanks!

 

[RM-MN]

Rehydrate your dry yeast (you always should because it gets you many more live yeast cells into the fermenter) and pour the liquid into the fermenter. That way the yeast will not sit on top of the foam and will go to work immediately.

 

[week0019]

I've always avoided that considering it to be another step with risk of infection but it's starting to sound like a good option being that most seem to recommend it and it would solve the suds problem. Thanks!

 

[kombat]

The risk of infection is very minimal, provided you follow good sanitization protocol. And the dramatic benefit of pitching effectively twice as much yeast (since pitching dry reduces cell viability by up to 50%) is a benefit well worth the risk.

Also, if you can dissipate the "suds" with a little stirring, you probably haven't aerated it enough. I aerate with a wine de-gassing rod on a drill and work up a good froth about 2-3 inches thick of small, compact bubbles. This bed of foam persists for several hours, such that I can't even tell when the foam on top stops being the foam I created by aerating, and starts just being a normal krausen. That is to say, after aerating, I don't actually see the surface of my beer again until fermentation has finished and the krausen has fallen.

 

[week0019]

So probably boiling a cup or two of water directly in a heat able flask and plugging with a sanitized stopper until it reaches rehydrating temp then adding the yeast to rehydrate would be safest I assume. I'll go that route unless there's something bad about that approach.

 

[RM-MN]

So probably boiling a cup or two of water directly in a heat able flask and plugging with a sanitized stopper until it reaches rehydrating temp then adding the yeast to rehydrate would be safest I assume. I'll go that route unless there's something bad about that approach.

That's better than what I do. I usually (when I remember to rehydrate) use tap water. I run the hot water until I think it is warm enough and call that good enough. I do use a thermometer most of the time.v:cross:

 

[week0019]

So I rehydrated at 80F in about 2 cups of water for 30 minutes then pitched. This has resulted in very stratified layers and pretty much no activity in the air lock 12 hrs later. Is this normal when rehydrating?
Here's the details:
2 gallon cream ale
1.050og
Safeale us-05 (1 pack)

Do I need to stir? Usually takes off by now when I've pitched dry

 

[week0019]

Oh and the room it's in is 66 degrees

 

[d3track]

Give it 24hrs, the yeasties will churn that all up.

 

[week0019]

Yeah the airlock is bubbling away good now. I was just surprised that it took longer to take off than I'm used to pitching dry. Wondering if I did something about the rehydration wrong (or not as good as it should have been done)

 

[kombat]

I'm not seeing much foam in that pic; did you aerate? If so, how?

 

[week0019]

I'm not seeing much foam in that pic; did you aerate? If so, how?

I tried. I siphoned it all in with the hose held at the top of the fermenter aimed straight down splashing the whole batch in. Then I shook the whole thing for a couple of minutes. That photo was about 12 hrs later so the foam had gone away. I'd like to aerate as much as possible but not sure how to do much better without aeration equipment. I wasn't sold on running my dirty old drill with an aeration attachment over the open fermenter incase it dropped crud in there.