Did I use too much yeast?

[BOBTHEukBREWER]

In just 26 hours from pitching yeast, the SG dropped from 1.044 to 1.014.

I used one pint volume of thick yeast sludge from the previous brew. I have 100% confidence in the accuracy of these two readings.

Did I use too much, and if I did, what will be the effect on the finished beer - a pale english style bitter made only with crushed maris otter pale malt and cascade hops. Thanks.

 

[infection]

ohhhhh boy your in big trouble

 

[daugenet]

ohhhhh boy your in big trouble

lol


On the topic though that is a huge drop in a short time. I am not sure what to say

 

[Bentpirate]

ohhhhh boy your in big trouble

I just made that my wallpaper at work! Awesome! I watched this one the other weekend.... too cool! Thanks!

 

[Bob]

RDWHAHB. You overpitched a bit. Okay, a lot; you needed about 50 ml and you pitched over 500ml. (Presuming 5 gallons UK, of course.)

But you'll have beer! That's what's important.

For future reference, use the Mr Malty calculator:

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

You can set it for Imperial, US and metric measurements. Use the Repitching from Slurry tab and play around with the settings.

It's important to pitch the correct amount of yeast, but it's not as though you'll absolutely ruin your beer if you pitch too much. I'm a big proponent of pitching the appropriate amount of yeast, because it has as big a flavor impact as the other ingredients we carefully measure: grain and hops.

Have fun!

Bob

 

[BOBTHEukBREWER]

thanks to all as usual, it is now 1.012 after a further 24 hours eg slowing down - smells fine.

 

[Beerbuck]

I did that already. pitching a nice yeast cake on a new beer.
I admit I never did a gravity test after a day but dosent mather, let it rest 4 or 5 days and then throw in secondary, will not affect the beer, did couple of GREAT beer like this

 

[BOBTHEukBREWER]

Fermentation actually ended after 72 hours, FG - 1.011. I do not use secondaries, it is straight into bottles, to monitor pressure I use 3 1 litre PET bottles, the rest are 500 ml glass bottles. Before anybody says it, I am not risking bottle bombs, I put only a tiny amount of priming sugar in each bottle.

 

[Hokie]

I recently went on a tour of the Stone brewery near San Diego and they mentioned their fermentations only take two days for all but the most extreme beers they brew. The reason it take so little time is because they use an incredible amount of yeast (according to the green-haired tour guide) among a few other things. If they can do it and make amazing beers, I suppose we should be able to as well.

 

[mattldm]

I recently went on a tour of the Stone brewery near San Diego and they mentioned their fermentations only take two days for all but the most extreme beers they brew. The reason it take so little time is because they use an incredible amount of yeast (according to the green-haired tour guide) among a few other things. If they can do it and make amazing beers, I suppose we should be able to as well.

I remember hearing the same thing on the tour at Stone.
Their brew kettle is 4000 gallon and their fermenters are 12K gallons, so it takes three batches to fill one fermenter. They probably pitch the yeast in with the first batch and it starts going to town, like a huge starter, then they add the second and third batches as soon as they get brewed.

Hangar24 also told me that they pitch the yeast early before the fermenter is full. (600 gallon batches, and their biggest fermenters are 4800, so 8 batches to fill so it takes them several days to fill them.

Kinda OT to the thread, but i think this is why they can ferment the beer so quickly, by the time the fermenter is full the yeast is going crazy.

 

[Brewham]

The Stooges's picture is great. I am waiting to see someone make it into a label.

 

[BOBTHEukBREWER]

OK I am now drinking the beer. It is wonderful. I think the advantage of over pitching is that the fermentation starts quicker and the CO2 produced flushes away the air and bacteria above the beer.