- Joined
- Jan 25, 2013
- Messages
- 78
- Reaction score
- 10
As part of a larger order last February or March, I bought a Norther Brewer AG Ordinary Bitter kit. It's now 8 or 9 months later and that kit is still sitting around. In 3-4 weeks I will be a new first time father, so I figured I'd better get on this before my inevitable hiatus from brewing for a bit.
I thought the yeast (Wyeast 1945 NB NeoBrittania), with it's manufacture date of late January, was going to be unreliable. I had planned on doing a starter but things have been hectic and I ran out of time and brew day was upon me. I ended up buying a Wyeast 1098 British Ale smack pack at the local brew store.
The morning of brew day I smacked both yeast packages first thing. Imagine my surprise prior to pitching when I saw that the old 1945 had swelled the bag more than the new 1098! I know that not necessary an indicator of much (other than the fact that the yeast is not entirely dead), so I just pitched both. I figured there was no way that the old yeast was all that viable so I tossed it in as a "why not"?
Within 14 hours fermentation was going insane. I am very glad I used a blow-off tube instead of an airlock, because it's filled with krausen. It's now about 36 hours later and it's still bubbling like crazy.
So my question is: are there consequences to over-pitching?
I've never heard of any. Starters are a good thing, and although more is not better past a certain point, I don't think it gets to the point of making things WORSE, right? Once the yeast consume the fermentable sugars they'll all go dormant and fall out… the consequence being that they will get to that point more quickly.
But are there impacts on the flavors, higher levels of diacetyls, etc.? I already know that I am not going to match the flavor profile of the beer because I mixed yeasts… I'm not overly worried about that. It's a question of "will the beer be objectively worse" for the over-pitching?
I thought the yeast (Wyeast 1945 NB NeoBrittania), with it's manufacture date of late January, was going to be unreliable. I had planned on doing a starter but things have been hectic and I ran out of time and brew day was upon me. I ended up buying a Wyeast 1098 British Ale smack pack at the local brew store.
The morning of brew day I smacked both yeast packages first thing. Imagine my surprise prior to pitching when I saw that the old 1945 had swelled the bag more than the new 1098! I know that not necessary an indicator of much (other than the fact that the yeast is not entirely dead), so I just pitched both. I figured there was no way that the old yeast was all that viable so I tossed it in as a "why not"?
Within 14 hours fermentation was going insane. I am very glad I used a blow-off tube instead of an airlock, because it's filled with krausen. It's now about 36 hours later and it's still bubbling like crazy.
So my question is: are there consequences to over-pitching?
I've never heard of any. Starters are a good thing, and although more is not better past a certain point, I don't think it gets to the point of making things WORSE, right? Once the yeast consume the fermentable sugars they'll all go dormant and fall out… the consequence being that they will get to that point more quickly.
But are there impacts on the flavors, higher levels of diacetyls, etc.? I already know that I am not going to match the flavor profile of the beer because I mixed yeasts… I'm not overly worried about that. It's a question of "will the beer be objectively worse" for the over-pitching?