I boiled the yeast :(

[wareagle30]

So I made my first batch on Wednesday night. Like an idiot, without keeping in mind that yeast is a living organism, I boiled the water and added the dried yeast in to rehydrate.

36 hours later, I'm getting very subtle bubbles in my airlock when I press down on the bucket lid a bit, but nothing significant. Questioning where I may have gone wrong, I thought about my procedure and remembered boiling the water for the yeast.

My question is, should I:

A. Give it another 24-36 hours to see what happens?
B. Rehydrate more yeast properly in sanitized 80-90 degree water and pitch it?

If I pitch more yeast, am I running any significant risk in opening the top of the bucket to do it?

Thank you all!

 

[MuchoGusto]

You have to re-pitch. You are creating the bubbles in the airlock yourself by pushing on the lid. Re-pitch today or risk tossing it all out.

 

[NordeastBrewer77]

if you actually put the yeast in near boiling water, it most likely died. the general rule of thumb is to wait 72 hours to see if the yeast starts, but if you KNOW you boiled the yeast, then repitching isn't a bad idea.
opening the fermenter isn't going to hurt anything, how else are you supposed to take those all so important gravity readings. just make sure your hands and anything else that gets close to the open fermenter are clean and sanitized. and close the lid promptly after repitching.
good luck!

 

[cincydave]

Personally, I would go with option B. If you boiled yeast, think they are all dead. Could be some wild yeast starting a bit of fermentation. Do it asap, to get your "good yeasts" up and running.

 

[Revvy]

Add more yeast, the yeast is dead. Many of us PURPOSEFULLY add some old yeast or even bread yeast to the boil, it acts as yeast food. So you've just added a high energy treat for the fresh yeast you need to pitch.

 

[wareagle30]

Thanks for the advice! I'll repitch this afternoon when I get home!

 

[wareagle30]

UPDATE:

So I repitched Friday afternoon. The airlock happily bubbled through Sunday night. Monday afternoon, it looked like the aggressive bubbling had subsided. I agitated the fermenter by putting it on a baseball and spinning it for about 60 seconds. Bubbling resumed almost immediately until this morning when I checked it again. Now it's a bubble about every 15 seconds or so. I'm going to start checking gravity on Friday then rack into secondary if it's stable on Sunday.

FYI, it's a 3 Floyds Gumball Head clone kit.

 

[flabyboy]

Add more yeast, the yeast is dead. Many of us PURPOSEFULLY add some old yeast or even bread yeast to the boil, it acts as yeast food. So you've just added a high energy treat for the fresh yeast you need to pitch.

Little cannibals

 

[RM-MN]

UPDATE:

So I repitched Friday afternoon. The airlock happily bubbled through Sunday night. Monday afternoon, it looked like the aggressive bubbling had subsided. I agitated the fermenter by putting it on a baseball and spinning it for about 60 seconds. Bubbling resumed almost immediately until this morning when I checked it again. Now it's a bubble about every 15 seconds or so. I'm going to start checking gravity on Friday then rack into secondary if it's stable on Sunday.

FYI, it's a 3 Floyds Gumball Head clone kit.

There really is no reason you have to rack it to a secondary unless you are oaking or long term aging. Your beer is just fine in the primary for more than 4 weeks and will clear just the same. It will give the yeast more opportunity to clean up on the yeast cake so your beer might taste a little better left where it is.

 

[wareagle30]

There really is no reason you have to rack it to a secondary unless you are oaking or long term aging. Your beer is just fine in the primary for more than 4 weeks and will clear just the same. It will give the yeast more opportunity to clean up on the yeast cake so your beer might taste a little better left where it is.

I had read that, however, I was going to dry hop about double what the clone recipe called for, so I thought I'd need to rack to do that. Am I wrong?

 

[Lyikos]

Add more yeast, the yeast is dead. Many of us PURPOSEFULLY add some old yeast or even bread yeast to the boil, it acts as yeast food. So you've just added a high energy treat for the fresh yeast you need to pitch.

Wow, that's a novel idea. Does adding dry yeast into the boil have possibility of contributing autolysis flavors? I'll have to try this.

 

[daksin]

Wow, that's a novel idea. Does adding dry yeast into the boil have possibility of contributing autolysis flavors? I'll have to try this.

No, you don't have to add much. I use less than a tablespoon of a crappy baker's yeast (bought at costco, made terrible bread, so now it's yeast nutrient!) in my higher gravity brews. You can also boil a few grams with a couple ounces of sugar if you ever get a stuck fermentation, and add that to your beer. It's helped me out before.

 

[Revvy]

Wow, that's a novel idea. Does adding dry yeast into the boil have possibility of contributing autolysis flavors? I'll have to try this.

This is a misoconception that so many people have, autolysed yeast and dead yeast are NOT the same thing. And folks need to grasp this, and quit worrying about autoysis. It's just not an issue for us....

Autolysis is to yeasts what peritonitus is to humans, it's a specific condition. Everyone who dies doesn't have their intestines rupture and rotten bacteria dump into their bloodstream.

NOR does every yeast cell that dies dump the contents of IT'S cells into the beer. If that were the case every beer we ever make would autolysize...

We'd never have aged, bottle conditioned beer. Hell we'd never have ANY bottle conditioned beers, COMMERCIAL OR HOMEBREW.

Autolysis is not the inevitable end of healthy yeast. It is the unnatural end that is a product of yeast health...like peritinitus or even cancer in us....it is an abberation....UNHEALTHY AND STRESSED yeast autolyse... but rarely do we have unhealthy yeast these days, most of the yeast we pitch is fresh...and unless we are making a huge beer, even underpitching will not NECESSARILY produce stressed out yeast. Or stressed out yeast that will automatically autlolyse....

Most yeast that folks call dead, is actually dormant. Like most of what's in the bottom of the fermenter when fermentation is complete. And the yeast is indead dead, a lot of it is canibalized by the living yeast. And the rest, if the yeast was healthy to begin with, is just dead....think of it as natural causes, it's not necessarily spilling it's "intestinal" goop into our beer.

 

[birvine]

I had read that, however, I was going to dry hop about double what the clone recipe called for, so I thought I'd need to rack to do that. Am I wrong?

You can dry hop right into the primary. But, make sure the fermentation is done or you'll lose some of the hop flavour. I ferment for 3-4 weeks in the primary, then add the hops for another 7 days and then bottle or keg.

/B

 

[NordeastBrewer77]

This is a misoconception that so many people have, autolysed yeast and dead yeast are NOT the same thing. And folks need to grasp this, and quit worrying about autoysis. It's just not an issue for us....

Autolysis is to yeasts what peritonitus is to humans, it's a specific condition. Everyone who dies doesn't have their intestines rupture and rotten bacteria dump into their bloodstream.

NOR does every yeast cell that dies dump the contents of IT'S cells into the beer, COMMERCIAL OR HOMEBREW. If that were the case every beer we ever make would autolysize...

We'd never have aged, bottle conditioned beer. Hell we'd never have ANY bottle conditioned beers.

Autolysis is not the inevitable end of healthy yeast. It is the unnatural end that is a product of yeast health...like peritinitus or even cancer in us....it is an abberation....UNHEALTHY AND STRESSED yeast autolyse... but rarely do we have unhealthy yeast these days, most of the yeast we pitch is fresh...and unless we are making a huge beer, even underpitching will not NECESSARILY produce stressed out yeast. Or stressed out yeast that will automatically autlolyse....

+1!

autolysis literally means self consumption, i.e. cannibalism. yeast autolysis is the yeast eating their dead brothers and sisters. and as revvy stated, it's NOT an issue for most home brewers.

 

[Revvy]

No, you don't have to add much. I use less than a tablespoon of a crappy baker's yeast (bought at costco, made terrible bread, so now it's yeast nutrient!) in my higher gravity brews. You can also boil a few grams with a couple ounces of sugar if you ever get a stuck fermentation, and add that to your beer. It's helped me out before.

Since I do small batches inevitably I have some half packets of 04 or 05 lying around that I use as well. Some folks even add it to starters.