Dumb underpitching question

[flynavy03]

So I just brewed an IPA last night, which turned out just north of 1.070 OG with 5.5 gallons into primary. Unfortunately, when I went to pitch the yeast (Wyeast 1056), I realized that I had missed the smackpack inside the yeast when I smacked it before brewing. It fell out into the funnel when I was pitching. :smack:

So fast forward 24 hours and I've already rigged a blowoff tube, as the yeast seem to be going to town. Despite this, I'm pretty sure I severely underpitched. Dumb question: can I get away with going to my LHBS tomorrow, picking up another smackpack, and pitching that as well? I'm reading the horror stories of banana beer and would like to avoid that. Don't think it'll go with Chinook hops.

 

[g-star]

First of all, breaking the smack pack does nothing to increase your cell count, it is just an indicator that you have viable yeast. Second, one smack pack for a 1.070+ beer is a severe underpitch. Depending on when the yeast was packaged, you really needed a big starter or 4-6 smack packs.

In the end, you'll have beer but you risk off-flavors and the final product will not be nearly the quality it could be with pitching the proper amount of yeast. If you're not comfortable with making starters, dry yeast is a good substitute for certain beers and provides a much higher cell count right out of the package, if properly re-hydrated.

 

[LLBeanJ]

As g-star said, the nutrient pack isn't a substitute for a starter and doesn't add to the cell count. It's more like vitamins for the yeast. If it's already showing signs of active fermentation, pitching more yeast is unlikely to help. Just let it go and see what you get. It is a pretty significant underpitch, so I would suspect you'll get some esters, but to what degree will remain to be seen. You may need to age it out a bit longer than you had planned.

 

[kh54s10]

You did underpitch. You will likely have some off flavors. It will make your beer a bit off style but should not make it undrinkable. You might not even notice if you don't know the target taste of the recipe.

Pitching more now would not do much since the yeast have propagated and are well into fermentation.

Read up on starters. You should make starters for most beers when using liquid yeast.

 

[boydster]

The saving grace here is that you used 1056, and it doesn't usually produce banana bombs. You certainly could have used a bigger pitch, but now that the lag phase is over there's no reason to pitch more yeast. The best thing to do now is mind your temps to make sure you don't open up another avenue for off-flavors to develop. And I agree with kh54s10, you may not even notice off flavors if you've never made this recipe before. Also, if you usually make 1.070 beers without a starter, you may be familiar with what 1056 tastes like in this type of situation.

If it were me, I'd remake the exact same recipe again immediately and pitch an appropriately sized starter, then do a side-by-side comparison. It's a great way to get to know a yeast strain and you get more beer - win, win!

 

[turkeygecko]

Pitch 2 packets of US-05. More or less the same strain, going to be clean if you ferment below 70. It's half the cost of liquid yeast and has a much higher cell account (especially if the liquid wasn't manufactured recently). Don't have to make a starter, can pitch it directly. You'll have come closer to hitting an appropriate cell count with 2 packets of US-05 than with 4 smack packs.

 

[flynavy03]

Thanks for the help! Well the yeast certainly didn't need the help; it went bonkers for about 2 days. First time I've had krausen through 4 feet of blowoff tube into the mason jar.

As has been mentioned; I'll just make sure I pitch a starter next time; I think it's past time to pitch extra yeast. I was always of the "meh, who needs it" persuasion, but after reading about the off flavors, it makes me wonder if that's the source of some "not quite rightness" in the other two AG batches I've made to date. I had thought it might be the water.

The batch wasn't supposed to be that heavy; as I said, this is only my third AG batch, and I'm still trying to figure out how much my brewpot boils off so as to get the right numbers in Beersmith. I lost way more than expected in the boil, topped off with the rest of my filtered water, and ran out before I could hit the volume Beersmith wanted into the fermenter. We'll see how it turns out; there are worse things in life than two cases of unintentional IIPA.

 

[flynavy03]

Racked to secondary and dryhopped today. Yes, we have no bananas. We'll see how a Chinook IPA turns out; very bitter and piney right now, but it's room temperature and flat, so that will change somewhat.