So I missed my OG, what does these numbers mean?

[CajunChuck]

I brewed a Holiday Gingerbread Brown Ale from AIH. OG was supposed to be 1.045 (as per the label) and it came in at 1.035? I have a 2L starter with one full cup of pale DME with my yeast US-05 that I pitched at 65 degrees.

WHAT DOES this mean when it comes to missing my original gravity and what I added with the yeast starter. Sorry for the complex question but any help is appreciated.

 

[jschein]

Was it all grain or extract?

 

[Gavin C]

Extract batch. If the volume is right the gravity is right. Mixing the wort and top up water commonly leads to measurement error. Not a problem.

All-grain batch, there are many many possible reasons for the lower than planned OG.

On the starter.

Making one for dry yeast is not needed, not cost effective and for the size of starter you made there is a decent possibility you will have less viable yeast than had you rehydrated and pitched the yeast as per the manufacturers guidelines and not prepped a starter.

Not a big deal, you will still have plenty of viable yeast for a 1.045 beer.

 

[CajunChuck]

Thanks. So it was the $20 extract batch (figured I couldn't go wrong for that price). I have done extract batches before and come pretty close to OG per manufacturer recommended numbers. This was off and had to ask. Thanks for the reply.

@Gavin C: I did not realize starting up dry yeast was a waste. They yeast was mighty happy prior to pouring it in the fermenter and only after an hour and 30 minutes it is active at controlled temp of 62 degrees. So rehydrating and yeast starter result in more/less viable yeast? I thought a yeast starter resulted in MORE yeast.

 

[toejam]

Yeast starters are beneficial for liquid yeast. Dry yeast really only need to be rehydrated.

 

[JimRausch]

Cajun- if I'm reading your posts correctly, you didn't really make a starter(ie. started it a couple days ahead of pitching) but rehydrated the US-05 in some DME/wort. There is some research out there that indicates that rehydrating in wort actually kills more yeast than rehydrating in water, but as Gavin said, you have plenty of yeast in a packet of US-05 for a 1.045 beer so you didn't hurt things much. I'll bet you'll see visible signs of fermentation shortly.
Brew-on!

 

[Cider123]

I brewed a Holiday Gingerbread Brown Ale from AIH. OG was supposed to be 1.045 (as per the label) and it came in at 1.035?
WHAT DOES this mean when it comes to missing my original gravity

It means you get to drink a lot more of it at any given time

 

[Gavin C]

Thanks. So it was the $20 extract batch (figured I couldn't go wrong for that price). I have done extract batches before and come pretty close to OG per manufacturer recommended numbers. This was off and had to ask. Thanks for the reply.

@Gavin C: I did not realize starting up dry yeast was a waste. They yeast was mighty happy prior to pouring it in the fermenter and only after an hour and 30 minutes it is active at controlled temp of 62 degrees. So rehydrating and yeast starter result in more/less viable yeast? I thought a yeast starter resulted in MORE yeast.

Making a starter with dry yeast can be done but the cost benefit equation doesn't favor it. To get any sort of decent growth rate, given the large numbers of viable yeast in a dry packet you need ~3L starter. That takes about 300g of DME to make. You're needs are better served by buying a second pack.

For this beer 1 pack of dry yeast is ample.

If you rehydrated the yeast correctly before pitching the dry yeast into the starter you will not have killed any significant portion of the yeast. What I was getting at was that many folks who for whatever perceived reason make a starter with dry yeast and pitch the yeast directly into the starter are accomplishing nothing.

Pitching dry kills half their yeast and then the hope is that the starter is of sufficient size to allow yeast growth to bring the numbers back to where the brewer started with had they done nothing.

Either way, rehydrating or not before the needless stater you should have zero issues with pitch rate on this beer.

Just a heads up for future brews.

Rehydration of S-05

Less than 1 minute of prep and ~15-30 mins waiting. Get the most out of your ingredients is my view.

There are a bazillion threads on yeast rehydration and its merits/redundancy. I don't want to spark that debate here. Plenty of threads have explored that in great depth.

 

[CajunChuck]

Cajun- if I'm reading your posts correctly, you didn't really make a starter(ie. started it a couple days ahead of pitching) but rehydrated the US-05 in some DME/wort. There is some research out there that indicates that rehydrating in wort actually kills more yeast than rehydrating in water, but as Gavin said, you have plenty of yeast in a packet of US-05 for a 1.045 beer so you didn't hurt things much. I'll bet you'll see visible signs of fermentation shortly.
Brew-on!

So I may be confused. On Thursday, I took 1 full cup of DME and mixed it with 1500ml of water. I boiled this for 10 minutes and then poured into my beaker and chilled to 65 degrees. I then opened the packet of US-05 and dumped it in. I then sat it on my stir plate and let it spin until this morning(Saturday). I started brewing around 10 this morning and around noon I dumped the wort/Yeast into the fermenter.

It would seem that there is a fair amount MORE yeast that is sitting on the bottom as opposed to me rehydrating. I've rehydrated may times in the past and just started using the beaker and stir plate after strolling through a bunch of Youtube videos. I don't know anymore..

 

[Gavin C]

Yea. That methodology will have accomplished nothing other than reduce the viability of your yeast unfortunately.

Pitching dry into an undersized starter at too high a gravity. Ticking all the boxes for a pointless and somewhat (albeit irrelevantly) detrimental starter with dry yeast.

Starters. Boil for 1 minute. Sanitized. That's it.

• Liquid yeast use appropriately sized starters
  
• Dry yeast rehydrate as per the manufacturers' instructions.

You'll not go too far wrong if you follow these simple guidelines.

More about starters in my sig if you're interested.