Too much yeast?

[slayer84]

I am rather new to the hobby of homebrewing ,so you'll have to forgive me if this question sounds elementary . . .I was wondering if there was such thing as adding too much yeast to a standard 5 gallon batch and if so, what would the outcome be? Thankyou for any help on the matter.

 

[hopsoda]

Ka----Boom

the blow off can make quite a mess , but i dont know what it does to the beer ... or whats left of it.

subscribed

 

[Pappers_]

Theoretically, yes. It would help though to know why you are asking - what is your situation, what beer are you brewing and how much yeast are you thinking of using.

I am rather new to the hobby of homebrewing ,so you'll have to forgive me if this question sounds elementary . . .I was wondering if there was such thing as adding too much yeast to a standard 5 gallon batch and if so, what would the outcome be? Thankyou for any help on the matter.

 

[FishinDave07]

If you add a 5 gallon bucket full of yeast to 5 gallons of work...then you have added too much

Behold, Pacman Yeast! (This would be too much for Homebrewing)



Check the out 3:01 mark.

 

[jbambuti]

Depending on the temperature range of your yeast and the temp in your fermenting environment, it can make a difference. Lots of yeast working really hard will drop your gravity quickly, but will also raise the temp inside your fermenter quite a bit. I learned this the hard way, overpitching Notty in an English IPA over the summer. The temp in the basement was about 68F and I forgot that Notty doesn't do well over 70F. Violent fermentation and I'm pretty sure the temp was quite a bit over 68 in the fermenter. The finished beer has a strong 'off flavor' that hasn't lessened after about a month and a half in the bottles. I hope it mellows out with more time, but the last bottle I tried was pretty undrinkable. I hope I don't have to pour out the whole batch. Use a pitching calculator and be careful of your fermentation temp with regard to your particular yeast.

 

[slayer84]

Wow! thanks for the quick responses. I guess I left you guys hanging there with the lack of details. . .sorry about that. I am aware that you must use more yeast for a lager, the beer that i am going to be brewing is your standard cream ale and a Bavarian wheat.
A few months ago, i brewed an Irish Red ale and used a yeast starter, which i built up a couple of times(1000 ml flask with 3/4 cup of malt extract and an activator yeast pack). Although the Activator package states that it does not need a yeast starter, i used on anyways.
I was mainly asking if you could use too much yeast and if so, what will it affect?
Sorry for the confusion.

 

[chucke]

Here's a handy dandy tool to help pitch the right amount of yeast, be it dry, liquid or slurry.

http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html

 

[FishinDave07]

+1 Chucke, that's a good go-to!

 

[goetzUM]

+1 to you, jbambuti. I had never heard of a good reason why overpitching might be a bad thing, but just last night I pitched onto an ESB yeast cake. I woke up to it overflowing everywhere because it had filled up the jar I use as the runoff from the blowoff tube. The temperature in the room was 68 degrees last night and now the fermometer on the carboy says 80. I had no idea that fermentation created such a temperature change.

 

[slayer84]

Thank you everybody for the information.

 

[oldschool]

Yeast do four things, produce alcohol, CO2, metabolic building blocks(esters, ect.), and more yeast. Part of the flavors of beer come from the excess of building blocks produced by the multiplying yeast, which always produce about three times the materials that they need. If you pitch so much yeast the there is no time for cell multiplication to happen before all sugars are consumed, then there will be little flavor compounds present in your beer. read this at BYO from John Palmer. It's all about finding that happy medium for a particular beer style. he also said that a true clone recipe will have a pitch rate included.

 

[Bob]

Well put, oldschool. Both under-pitching and over-pitching negatively impact beer flavor. The first produces excessive esters and under-attenuation; the second will suppress ester production and risks off-flavors from other byproducts of the yeast life-cycle.

Proper pitching rates are easy to compute, and the technique is simple. Your beer (and the people who drink it) will thank you.



Bob

 

[oldschool]

Well put, oldschool. Both under-pitching and over-pitching negatively impact beer flavor. The first produces excessive esters and under-attenuation; the second will suppress ester production and risks off-flavors from other byproducts of the yeast life-cycle.

Proper pitching rates are easy to compute, and the technique is simple. Your beer (and the people who drink it) will thank you.



Bob

I checked out your website. I hope that i need you some day.