Liquid Yeast Questions

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techie128

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I'm a relatively inexperienced homebrewer (6 or 7 5-gallon batches in the past 6 months, most of which turned out fantastic). I'm trying to figure out how to use liquid yeast. Despite my best efforts to make sense of everything, all the advice I'm finding is contradicting.

Recently I tried making a Wheat beer with a Hefeweizen yeast but the yeast failed to ferment. It was the second Wheat beer I had made. (The first batch was with a generic Munton's brewer's yeast instead.) This was the first time I've tried brewing with liquid yeast so I thought maybe I did something wrong. I went and pitched a pack of Munton's after several days and the beer fermented and now is in bottles.

I went to my local homebrew shop to ask some questions. The guys there said that it was the local water - that boiling water wouldn't get out all the chemicals. He suggested bottled water instead. I tried fermenting a gallon of distilled water, dextrose and the same hefeweizen liquid yeast (new vial) in a 1 gallon fermenter as an experiment. This failed too.

Anyone have any suggestions? I understand there is an art to starting a yeast culture but I thought under these conditions I should at least see something going on.
 
If you could explain your procedure using liquid yeast, someone here could probably pinpoint your problem. I've never heard of water quality being an issue with fermentation. Enough chlorine or chloramine in the water to kill off all your yeast would certainly be too high a level for human consumption. I would suspect the viability of the yeast more than water quality.
 
So, you asked your LHBS about why your liquid yeast didn't ferment and they responded with some crap about chemicals in the water? I suggest you hang out around here for brewing advice and stick to just buying things from your LHBS ;)

But yes, we need more information about your process in able to identify the problem. How did you store the yeast before brewing? What were your fermentation temps? Did you happen to take a look at the date printed on the yeast?

Like Reelale said, unless your water was already toxic there's no way that is what killed your yeast. It could have been old yeast that your LHBS didn't store properly to begin with, or maybe you didn't keep it refrigerated and it got really hot somehow before brewing, or maybe you pitched the yeast when the beer was still too hot, or any number of things. But without a few more details it will be hard to pin down.
 
I can tell you why the sugar water failed, the yeast need nutrients form the malt like zinc and others, you need to add yeast energizer (biotin, ASKA dead yeast cells) to get yeast to ferment sugar water. I very much dought that it's the water. Area you pitching the yeast at temps above 90 degrees that will kill the yeast, ask any baker and he will tell you that.
 
I wasn't expecting such a quick response. Thank for the help. I'll try to answer each of your questions below:

Are you pitching the yeast at temps above 90 degrees that will kill the yeast, ask any baker and he will tell you that.

No, I have a wort chiller I made from refrigerator tubing. I wait until the wort is room temperature (gauged by touching the side of the pot with my hand) before pouring it into the fermenter.


I can tell you why the sugar water failed, the yeast need nutrients form the malt like zinc and others, you need to add yeast energizer (biotin, ASKA dead yeast cells) to get yeast to ferment sugar water.

Good point. In my sugar water experiment I did not add energizer. I'm going to try that next.


But yes, we need more information about your process in able to identify the problem. How did you store the yeast before brewing? What were your fermentation temps? Did you happen to take a look at the date printed on the yeast?

I stored it in a refrigerator just as my LHBS did. I took it out a few hours before pitching, cooled the wort to room temp with a wort chiller before pitching. The wort's temperature at pitch time and days after stayed consistently at around 74 F according to a thermometer (the sticker kind) I have stuck to the side of the fermenter.


Other details of my process:
I'm religiously using B-brite and haven't yet had a problem with beer going bad to date.

I'm boiling all 5 gallons since my LHBS said it was necessary to remove the chlorine. (I hear what you guys are saying about the water. I'm just trying to clear on what exactly my process has been in the past.)

I've worked with 3 kinds of yeast with success (all of them dry): munton's generic brewer's yeast, champagne yeast (for ciders), and cooper's stout yeast. Its the hefeweizen liquid yeast that is failing.

When I've been pitching the liquid yeast, I've not done a starter. I just pour the yeast in and stir with a sanitized wooden handle. I read that for a normal gravity beer this is not necessary. Do you guys agree?

The local water's not toxic. If it is I've got a bigger problem than stuck fermentation.


I'm starting to think that my LHBS has a bad batch of yeast now that you've explained that its probably not the water. What do you guys think? Is there anything about my process that stands out as wrong?

Thanks for all your help.
 
I can't think of anything other than it being a bad batch of yeast. 74 is a bit warm to pitch into but unless that 74 is dramtically wrong, the yeast should have easily survived and done the job.

I'm also not buying the "chemicals in the water" story unless your water is insanely outta whack... as in... not drinkable in any way.

Santitation won't stop yeast from fermenting... again... unless it is something insanely dramatic... It'll give you even MORE fermentation most of the time as the buggies from poor sanitiation will eat even more of your sugars.

All yeast packets (dry and liquid) will give you either a "packaged on" or "use by" date. Make sure those dates are ok.

In terms of starters... they're usually a good idea but not absolutely needed by any stretch. If you pitched liquid yeast, it should take off without a problem. Oxygenating, adding yeast nutrients, starters, etc etc... they'll all HELP... but you should have still fermented out pretty far with just pitching the vial.

One minor note: you don't have to stir in the yeast. Just dump it and leave it. Sticking a spoon handle in, sanitized or not, is just another chance for infection.

ok... actually a step or two back here.

How do you know you didn't ferment? Did you take hydrometer readings?
 
I forgot to mention that I did check the date and I had another couple months before expiration.

I did not take a hydrometer reading. Instead, I noted that were was no air moving through the airlock. I checked to make sure the lid was closed too. After four days of nothing I opened the fermenter. There were no bubbles or even signs of bubbles being there (usually the hops and gunk line the side of the primary once I've opened it). Additionally, I threw in a pack of muntons in after the four days and within 8 hours the fermentation took off like crazy and air was moving through the airlock.
 
Take hydrometer readings. It's the only way to be absolutely sure what's going on (although it sounds like nothing's going on, that just doesn't make sense).
 
I think all the questions have been hit by people above.

But just to make sure your future batches ferment well:

Make a starter. Mr Malty has a great calculator you can use to determine how big your starter should be. Add yeast nutrient if you want. But be sure to oxygenate the starter. Shake it often or put it on a stir plate. You're not making beer, just reproducing yeast. Pitch at fermentation temperatures. Aerate the wort. Keep within the fermentation temps. Remember, a bubbling airlock does not equal fermentation. Only a hydrometer will judge whether or not beer is being made.

You can get a lot deeper into the process if you'd like, but those points are easy to do, and will promote the yeast to make good beer. I think you just had a fluke batch of yeast.
 
If it doesn't ferment, blame he water! Yeast survived several mass exinctions, the holocaust and climate change and still it survived.
 
Distilled water removes all the nutrients that naturally occur in water. Extracts and such only provide so much so without those other nutrients you won't get a good ferment from distilled water without adding back what was removed.

Liquid yeast is just as easy to use for your basic 5 gallon batches as dry yeast in my opinion. I use smack-pack (Wyeast brand) so you have to let it get ready but as long as you know ahead of time its viable then you're good to pitch.
 
I'm outta ideas.... if the date was good on the yeast then there really should have been SOME kind of fermentation. Even if it wasn't great, I've never heard of a liquid yeast not doing anything at all.

The only thing I can think of is the vial, somewhere along the line from the White Labs plant to your house got nuked by temperature and it killed off the yeast.

There really isn't anything in your process that suggests ZERO fermentation.... assuming your gravity didn't drop AT ALL.
 
I forgot to mention that I did check the date and I had another couple months before expiration.

I did not take a hydrometer reading. Instead, I noted that were was no air moving through the airlock. I checked to make sure the lid was closed too. After four days of nothing I opened the fermenter. There were no bubbles or even signs of bubbles being there (usually the hops and gunk line the side of the primary once I've opened it). Additionally, I threw in a pack of muntons in after the four days and within 8 hours the fermentation took off like crazy and air was moving through the airlock.

So you declared your yeast dead because of a silly not bubbling airlock...sorry but more than likely your yeast and beer was fine.....

Well, you jumped the gun, and used a Faulty "sign of fermentation."

I don't see anything by what you are saying to indicate that your fermentation actually wasn't. All I see is that your airlock wasn't bubbling, and that you didn't take a gravity reading before panicking and pitched more yeast.

BUT without a gravity reading all you are telling me is that your airlock wasn't bubbling....That is NOT the same thing as a fermentation happening.

Whether it's in a conical, a bucket, or a carboy, it's the same thing. An airlock is a VENT, a VALVE to release excess co2, nothing more.

If it's not bubbling it just means that there no excess co2 to be vented out.


In your case, more than likely hadn't even started yet, or that it was working fine, and just didn't need to vent any co2 yet.

A beer may ferment perfectly fine without a single blip in the airlock.


That's why you need to take a gravity reading to know how your fermentation is going, NOT go by airlocks. The most important tool you can use is a hydrometer. It's the only way you will truly know when your beer is ready...airlock bubbles and other things are faulty.

The only way to truly know what is going on in your fermenter is with your hydrometer. Like I said here in my blog, which I encourage you to read, Think evaluation before action you sure as HELL wouldn't want a doctor to start cutting on you unless he used the proper diagnostic instuments like x-rays first, right? You wouldn't want him to just take a look in your eyes briefly and say "I'm cutting into your chest first thing in the morning." You would want them to use the right diagnostic tools before the slice and dice, right? You'd cry malpractice, I would hope, if they didn't say they were sending you for an MRI and other things before going in....

Thinking about "doing anything" without taking a hydrometer reading is tantamount to the doctor deciding to cut you open without running any diagnostic tests....Taking one look at you and saying, "Yeah I'm going in." You would really want the doctor to use all means to properly diagnose what's going on?

Next time, wait 72 hours, and then take a grav reading, what happens to 99% of the nervous new brewers like you, is that when they open their bucket to take the reading, they see a beautiful krauzen on top of the beer, which means that fermentation is indeed happening.

Yeasts just don't "NOT WORK" these days. That's an old idea from 30 years ago, not the reality these days. Given enough time the yeast does what it needs to do.

I am going to give you my standard rant about how, for the most part, the idea of "bad yeast" is really bogus....


Of god knows how many batches of beer I have made....I have never had fermentation not start, or a beer not turn out ok, and I have never ever ever had to add more yeast to a beer.

Except for infecting a starter due to poor sanitization, it really really is hard for yeast NOT to do what they do naturally.

That's how we can make a huge starter from the dregs of a bottle of beer...we let the viable (living) cells reproduce, and we feed them incrementally, and they continue to reproduce.

Seriously most LHBS know enough about what they are doing in terms of proper yeast storage, same with suppliers, it doesn't take a genius these days to know how to stick liquid (and dry yeasts usually) in a fridge, and ship in bulk in a styrofoam cooler.

We're talking billion dollar corporations (the yeast labs, and that's what they are LABS) and they aren't going to risk their rep by letting their suppliers and stores that carry their stuff , handle it improperly.

Besides...Yeast IS hardier than most newish brewers wanna give them props for...I mean You can't say that THIS YEAST was stored "properly" and yet, they managed to make a batch of beer with it.

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/17-08/ff_primordial_yeast

If we can make beer with that....even the tiniest viable glop in a barely smacked pack, is going to work as well. :D

Gang I can't say this enough;

Unless you bought liguid yeast through the mail in the heat of summer, or added your yeast into boiling wort. your fermentation will happen.

Yeast just don't not work anymore, that is an idea that came from the bad old days before homebrewing was legalized in 1978 when yeast came in hard cakes that travelled in hot cargo holds of ships ...And then sat under the lid of blue ribbon malt extract for god knows how long on grocery stores shelves.

But since 1978 yeast science has been ongoing and the yeasts of today, wet OR dry are going to work in 99.9% of the situations we have, if you give them the time to do so.

But every noob who starts an "my yeast is dead thread" just really pertpetuates a fear that has come from way back then, they got it from Papazain and other brew books written Thirty or more years ago, and were told horror stories of those yeasts, and it influenced their writing, which influence nervous noob brewers as well. AND he influenced Palmer and other book writers, who passed that yeast doubt onto generations of brewers.

And then, most of the time, you new brewers then freak each other out!!!! You see an "infection" or "Not fermenting" thread title, or 10 on a given day :D and most of you don't even read the story behind it...you just see a dozen yeast is f-d up threads...and then believe my yeast has the potential to be f-d up.

But as the guy who answers those questions on a daily basis and finds out that no hydro reading was taken, nor has it been 72 hours, and THEY (not you) ARE going by airlock bubbling- AND when they do take a hydro reading or pop the bucket lid, they see that there was a krausen....and most of the time they actually post back, to say they were being paranoid, and fermentation DID happen.

But to someone who actually doesn't follow up on those threads, they think that yeast is so damn fragile....when it is the brewer's nerves that are. :D

But Unless you bought yeast through the mail in the heat of summer, or dumped it in boiling wort 99% of the time your yeast will do it's job...no matter what the title of many threads APPEAR to say.

Yeast handling and growing is a science, AND a BUSINESS, EVEN DRY YEAST GANG, they are all grown in labs, not fly by night operations (that's why the whole argument about dry being sub-par to liquid is really idiotic)..and with the internet, and books, and magazines, including this months BYO btw, even the most inbred LHBS employee SHOULD and probably does know how to properly handle and store yeast prior to selling it to you.
 
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