Consequences of pitching too much yeast?

[GringoBandido]

I bought a pale ale kit that was supposed to be for a 2.5 gallon batch. I scaled down the malt extract and the hops for a 1 gallon batch so that i could make the recipe twice, except i accidentally pitched the entire yeast packet. We’re on day 2 and the airlock is bubbling at about the rate I’d expect it to, but will there be any other consequences of this?

Thanks!

 

[dawn_kiebawls]

The only real 'major' problem that happens with an over-pitch is that you will lose some of the character from the yeast. For a pale ale like you brewed, this isn't really an issue because those use a clean yeast profile to let the malt/hops shine, but if you were to have brewed a Saison, Dubbel or any of the other styles that focus more on the yeast profile it would be more of an issue, but still not 'major'. Hope this helps, cheers!

 

[IslandLizard]

Was that an 11.5 gram packet of dry yeast? One is plenty for a 5-6 gallon batch of medium gravity (1.040-1.060) ale wort.
So a whole package would already be an overpitch for 2.5 gallons of a medium gravity ale.

As @dawn_kiebawls said, a bit of an overpitch is not as critical for a Pale Ale or other beers where hops play the main role.

If you can keep good sanitation, you can save that yeast cake, store in fridge and repitch a part (1/6-1/4) of that in your next gallon batch. Read up about that, yeast keeps on giving.