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What yeast? How old? Liquid or dry? Starter or re-hydrated?
24 hours is too early to be really concerned. It may take up to 72 hours and not be a problem.
24 hours is too early to be really concerned. It may take up to 72 hours and not be a problem.
boydster
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The smack packs have a nutrient pack in them (that is what you are smacking) that feeds the yeast. Usually with a smack pack you need to make a starter, and that helps you ensure you have healthy yeast while also building up a large enough colony to do the job right. Are you able to make a starter?
What is the date of the pack and what is the OG of the beer to be brewed? Most likely the cold impeded the swelling of the pack but the larger concern is the pitch rate, you really should make a starter or you may need to purchase more yeast to ensure proper pitch rate for the desired beer.
Okay thanks I have read a couple places to just use active dry yeast a start it up first before pitching. Ever try this? I'm. Curios if it changes flavor. In addition I did a extract boil. I'm wondering if I could have cooked out all the sugar boiling too long.
Rhumbline
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24 hours is too soon to be worrying. Wait 72 hours before doing anything drastic. If nothing then, agitate the fermentation bucket by shaking it and give it another 24.
The smack packs are supposed to be brought up to room temp, smacked, and then left to swell. It usually takes a few hours for this to happen.
The smack packs are supposed to be brought up to room temp, smacked, and then left to swell. It usually takes a few hours for this to happen.
You can use 1 11.5 gram pack of dry yeast as well without the need of a starter but it should be rehydrated instead. The only flavor change would be if you chose to use a different strain of yeast. Many dry and liquid strains are the same like WY1056, WLP001 and So5 are all the same strain.
Boil time will not remove the sugars and I'll assume you boiled the 60 minutes? If you boiled longer you could have carmelized the wort a bit which will make your beer darker and may have changed the flavor profile slightly, hopefully you did not burn the extract
Boil time will not remove the sugars and I'll assume you boiled the 60 minutes? If you boiled longer you could have carmelized the wort a bit which will make your beer darker and may have changed the flavor profile slightly, hopefully you did not burn the extract
boydster
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Making a starter is just adding the contents of the smack pack to a small amount of unhopped wort to allow the yeast colony to grow to an ideal size for fermenting your beer. There is no need to wait for the pack to expand, but there is also no harm in it. If you smack the pack and then immediately dump all of the contents into a starter, the yeast are still able to consume the same nutrients as they would consume if you waited for the pack to expand. Each smack pack has about 100 billion cells in it. For a 5.5 gallon batch of beer (which would yield about 5 gallons of bottled or kegged beer) with an OG of 1.050, you need 193 billion cells.
Here is a thread about making starters: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/how-make-yeast-starter-pictorial-76101/
And here is a pitching rate calculator to help you figure out how many yeast cells you should pitch and what size starter will yield that # of cells: http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html
If you have already pitched your yeast in this batch, don't worry about it. The yeast you pitched will reproduce to the right size colony and make beer that you will probably enjoy immensely. Next time you make this recipe, do the starter first and you will notice it is even better. When the yeast are reproducing, they actually create some compounds that we detect as off-flavors (things like esters, etc). Making a starter limits those compounds because a lot of the reproduction is done before they hit your wort, and it also helps reduce lag time because the yeast don't need to spend as much time reproducing before they get to the main event of fermenting your wort.
Wow! Thanks boydster for the info! That was interesting. As you probably can tell I am new to this hobby. It sure has been.fun so far. This is my third batch. I am looking forward to see show this one turns out. I will let you know
boydster
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Yeah probably a bad idea, that stuff won't make beer nearly as well as brewer's yeast. Not to mention, the yeast you already pitched will have established a large enough colony by the time you pitch anything else, making your effort moot. I always keep a few packets of dry yeast on hand, and more often that not it is Safale US-05 (clean yeast) and S-04 (english ale type yeast). It's only a few bucks for a packet from any of the big online vendors or if you have a local shop you can buy it there to save on the shipping.
Welcome to the forums and to the hobby buzzen! There is so much information to be gleaned from this forum and it can be a bit overwhelming at times. Just keep in mind the most important factors of making good beer and start by attacking those areas first.
1. Cleaning and sanitation. This is the foundation everything else is built on.
2. Fermentation temperature. This is the single biggest change I ever made.
3. Yeast pitching rate. This is why you were told to make a starter.
4 Patience. Often the most difficult area.
Don't get discouraged and have fun. It's easy to make beer and as you learn to control the key factors you will make better and better beer. Cheers!
