I know, I know... Afraid I ruined my first batch....

[J_to_the_B]

Ok, to begin with I promise I DID read the FAQ and all pertinent stickies, I'm doing my best to RDWHAHB, but man, I'm getting anxious...

I started brewing my first ever batch last week using this kit on this equipment. I followed all the instructions from the kit and equipment, as well as heeding the sage advice found in How to Brew...

Here's my issue. My kit was shipped to south Mississippi in the dog days of summer, and because of in-laws that didn't know any better, the yeast sat in the garage for about a day and a half (heat index was 107). As soon as I realized it was out there (supposed to be a birthday surprise from SWMBO) I refrigerated it. The yeast was a Wyeast Smack Pack.

Additionally, I smacked the pack only about and hour and a half before I pitched it into my ice-bath cooled wort at just under 80 degrees Farenheit. It's been sitting for 6 days now near an A/C vent at a temp of about 74-76 Farenheit and is only showing a very minimal Krausen (hoping it's not actually just bacteria). I got really worried a day ago and made up a starter out of my other Wyeast pack, which also didn't seem to be doing anything... I pitched it anyway, but the whole batch seems to be progressing very very slowly. It's only been a week, and it smells ok through the airlock, but I'm worried I effed this one up..............

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TL;DR - Newbie thinks he messed up his beer. Advice please!

 

[HalfPint]

Take a gravity reading. If it's got a lower gravity than when you started, it's fermenting and you should leave it alone for another couple of weeks (or follow your original plan whatever that may be). If the gravity isn't any lower than your OG, your yeast was bad.

 

[J_to_the_B]

Sorry, should have included that in the OP.

Original Gravity was 1.044~ish and after 4 days I took another reading and it came out to 1.043~ish. I really couldn't tell if there was any change honestly. I'm gonna take another reading when I get home from work in the morning.

IF my yeast was bad, is the stuff I'm seeing on top most likely bacteria? Is this wort done for?

 

[arover]

Well, if you're seeing what you think is Krausen, then you've got fermentation. There's a pretty large difference in how a Krausen looks vs contamination. I would leave it for another good week before even touching it. You probably didn't have much yeast to begin with, straining them during fermentation (which may give some undesirable attributes to the final product) but that would explain the seemingly slow progression.

I'm curious yeast was? Did you pitch the same yeast going from the other starter?

Edit: Can you take a picture? And was that gravity reading before or after what you saw as Krausen?

 

[MaynardX]

I would shake the fermenter every now and again to rouse the yeast. Due to the explanation of your situation, you probably under pitched your yeast. I wouldn't worry about contamination. If you don't achieve close to your final gravity within a few weeks, i would pitch more yeast to help finish it off.

 

[J_to_the_B]

love how active this forum is...:rockin:

@MaynardX I'll give that a try... I'm hoping that when I get home in the morning I'll have a bubbly frothing Krausen, but if not I'll give shakin' it a try.

@arover Ok, that makes me feel better.... both yeasts I used were Wyeast smack packs, the first one was was mentioned in the original post, and the second was this one. The gravity reading I took was when I saw BARELY anything going on, about 24 hours before I double-pitched.
I've got pics, I'll upload them in a few hours after my shift.

Couple more ?'s: What does contamination look like (usually)?
I now need more yeast in order to start my second kit, NB's Multi-grain Red Ale. Any suggestions? I'm thinking about switching to White Labs at a buddy's suggestion. Also, any good threads on how to make a solid yeast starter so I don't run into this again?

THANKS ALL!

 

[Brasco20]

Stick with the smack pack, its great yeast. Get the starter kit from northern brewer, super easy and works great. Put your yeast in the fridge as soon as you get it, if you get bad yeast northern brewer will replace it. Not sure where your located, but if the order is taking a while to ship, maybe pay for 2nd day air, or get it from your local brew store.

 

[Brasco20]

Also i smack the yeast about 4 hours before i make my starter and let the starter sit for 24 hours before brewing. If your pack doesnt swell in a few hours, or your starter doesnt have sediment in the bottom after the 24 hours then you know the yeast was bad and know not to brew. Ive never had a bad smack pack, but it usually only takes 3 days to get here.

 

[Ouroboros]

I've left a year-old smack pack in my garage where I know it has topped 110 and managed to get some viable yeast out of it. I make starters to get the cell counts back up before pitching, though, so I can't tell you if you over or underpitched. If you pitched heat-shocked yeast, it's probably that many of the cells were not too happy to begin with.

Measure the specific gravity every 2 days or so, being very cautious about sanitation. If you don't actually have a good amount of viable yeast in your wort it is particularly vulnerable to infection. If you have a stuck fermentation, there are a lot of good threads about that topic but I personally would hit up my LHBS for a packet of Nottingham and pitch it.

It's a reliable and very clean dry yeast and is always good to have in the fridge in case things don't go as planned. You don't need to do much more than sprinkle it on top of the wort if it's below 1.060-ish. Smack packs put some great strains at your disposal, but for me personally they're a bit too expensive unless you're re-using your yeast or are looking for a specialty strain (like hefeweizen, saison, belgian, or proprietary yeast...).

 

[J_to_the_B]

Alright,this is what it looked like 4 days after brewday and pitching the yeast:
http://imgur.com/OE59z.jpg
(not a good pic, i know; and I can't embed yet, sorry!)

After 6 days it looked like this and I decide to make a starter from my second pack of yeast. http://imgur.com/NFHWh.jpg

That was two nights ago now, and I was really worried when I had to leave for work last night (hence the thread). BUT, LO AND BEHOLD, I arrived home to this beautiful sight: http://imgur.com/6GnFa.jpg

I'm keeping my fingers crossed the fermentation will continue, I'll take a gravity reading later to see what's happening. Hopefully it'll be ready for bottling in a week or so...

THANKS for all the advice and for calming my newbie fears.

 

[wyzazz]

Just a suggestion, but when you order your next kit I'd order a few packages of dry yeast. Pick up some S-04 (Whitbread Dry/WLP007/WY1098) and some US-05 (Chico/WLP001/WY1056), they work as well as the equivalent liquid strains and make great backups for situations such as yours.

And I'll be straight up honest here, given the choice I'll use a dry yeast. It's easier and there's just so many viable yeast in one of those packets it's unreal!

 

[snowveil]

Looking good. You may have had some viable yeast in your first smack pack but it would have been going through it's reproduction stage and therefore taking much longer to krausen. You might get some off flavors from it, but no worries

As recommended by wyzazz...it is definitely a good idea to have some extra dry yeast around. I had a hefeweizen yeast starter that I wasn't sure was viable....a few days later, nothing was happening, so my sorachi ace hefeweizen turned into a sorachi ace american wheat with thanks from some us-05 dry yeast

As for bottling in a week...give it time man! I know it's hard to wait on your first batch but the general consensus around here seems to be "month long primary". While you're waiting, start brewing your second batch so you won't feel the sting of waiting 6+ weeks for a batch of beer to be ready quite as badly with the next one

 

[bullinachinashop]

+1
You should always have some dry as a backup.
Also, living in the south at least in the summer, I would find a LHBS and by your yeast and supplies there.

Good luck,

Bull

 

[J_to_the_B]

Alright, so my first batch (the one I've been referencing here) has been bottle conditioning for about a week and a half. I had let it ferment after finally krausening with the help of a second yeast starter for about a week, and then it was in secondary for a week. Bottled with 5 oz. of corn sugar. I put a couple in the fridge for about half a day, and decided to crack one open.

It was freaking awful. I can't figure out what this overridingly bad off flavor is but it's so overpowering I can't even drink the beer. It's plenty carbonated and looks awesome in a pint glass, but it smells kind of... i don't know... astringent (?) maybe....

This is pretty dissapointing b/c I had hoped I saved it with my heroic second yeast starter and the help of this thread. Oh, well.

I started my second batch a week ago using some whitelabs yeast I got from a LHBS. I made a starter three days earlier with some DME and man that thing got going within 18 hours. It's almost ready to go to secondary. Hopefully I won't have the same problem this time.

 

[jfr1111]

Can you describe the off flavour a bit more ? Astringency like if you steep a tea bag for way too long in too much water or more a cidery, bittery feel ?

Whatever you do, don't pitch it. Just sit on it. Costs nothing (unless you have only two cases of bottles) and the off-flavour might just disappear.

Also, did you at any point, taste it ? Was it like that before you bottled. One thing I learned quick from a friend of mine is to taste every hydro reading and everytime you handle the beer so that if something goes wrong, pinpointing where and why is a lot easier than if you brew in the dark and never taste. Same thing as in cooking. If you just throw in a bunch of salt and spices at random points and it becomes too spicy or to salty, you'll never be able to correctly gauge whhen and where you added too much.

 

[Newbeerguy]

Ok, to begin with I promise I DID read the FAQ and all pertinent stickies, I'm doing my best to RDWHAHB, but man, I'm getting anxious...

I started brewing my first ever batch last week using this kit on this equipment. I followed all the instructions from the kit and equipment, as well as heeding the sage advice found in How to Brew...

Here's my issue. My kit was shipped to south Mississippi in the dog days of summer, and because of in-laws that didn't know any better, the yeast sat in the garage for about a day and a half (heat index was 107). As soon as I realized it was out there (supposed to be a birthday surprise from SWMBO) I refrigerated it. The yeast was a Wyeast Smack Pack.

Additionally, I smacked the pack only about and hour and a half before I pitched it into my ice-bath cooled wort at just under 80 degrees Farenheit. It's been sitting for 6 days now near an A/C vent at a temp of about 74-76 Farenheit and is only showing a very minimal Krausen (hoping it's not actually just bacteria). I got really worried a day ago and made up a starter out of my other Wyeast pack, which also didn't seem to be doing anything... I pitched it anyway, but the whole batch seems to be progressing very very slowly. It's only been a week, and it smells ok through the airlock, but I'm worried I effed this one up..............

------------------------------------
TL;DR - Newbie thinks he messed up his beer. Advice please!

I really feel that those 2 things are the most likely to cause off flavors. It has been my experiance that warmer (above 68) fermentation and pitching temps cause alot of ester production. Couple that with stressed yeast and the results could be less than pleasing.

Try pitching the yeast @ around 65 degrees and try maining that tempature for fermentation. I am not sure if the 74-76 was wort temp or ambient temp, but if it was ambient temp, your wort could of been upwards of 80 degrees and that would almost certainly casue off-flavors.

Don't get discouraged, live and learn

 

[J_to_the_B]

OK, so I just realized something else I may have done wrong.... over crushing the specialty grains??? I used a food processor, and I tried to be careful but I didn't know what it should look like. Could to much malt 'dust' have gotten into the wort? That would explain why this thing is so dark...

@jfr1111 I am facing a bottle deficiency so I may just keep the one-liter growlers I have of it and re-use my 12 oz.'s. As to the taste.... you know that kind of salty taste you get from a bottle of pellegrino (carbonated mineral water)? kind of like that. I'm having a hard time discerning any malt or hop flavor.

 

[jfr1111]

From what I've read, astrigency can be caused by steeping in water that is too high in temperature or from grains that were milled way too fine. Guess you have your answer there: I don't think the food-processor is the tool for the job. I've never experienced it first hand in a beer, but my mother-in-law makes the most awful teas and infusions known to man, so I think I can pinpoint the taste (her daughter isn't much better either, lol). It's not a pleasant one.

I'd still sit on a couple of bottles (if not the whole batch) anyway. Look at it as an experiment: try another at 6, 12, 18, 24, 30 weeks, etc. I know that most kit beers do not age all that well pass the 6 months mark, especially regarding hop aroma and flavour, but it'll still give you indications as to how astringency mellows out (if it does). Plus, it literally cannot kill you, all it can do is taste stale and crappy.

And for your bottle problems, do you have PBR bombers where you are ? Even here in 200% markup Quebec they are dirt cheap (and they are probably cheaper than buying brand new ones at the LHBS, plus they have beer in it).

 

[NorCalAngler]

If it makes you feel any better my first batch was absolutely terrible as well. I still have a single bottle left from my 1 gallon batch. I'm not sure if/when I will ever open it, but every bottle I tried was undrinkable. You learned a lot and that education is worth a lot more than your batch.