Moe yeast than required

[Mothman]

Edit: Topic title should read "more", not "Moe".



If I pitch a can of Imperial liquid yeast (claims 200 billion yeast when fresh) for a 3.5 gallon batch that only needs ~ 150billion cells, will I create problems for my brew? I assume the yeast wouldn't go through the normal growth phase in that case... ?

 

[thehaze]

Some higher gravity beers and lagers benefit from pitching more yeast, so to help with the fermentation, but depending on what kind of beer you are making, you should probably only pitch the required amount of cells. But that does not mean that pitching the whole can will have a negative impact on your beer. It will still ferment, albeit could possibly diminish the esters from the yeast.

I used Imperial Yeast two times last year: for a belgian and a red ale. Both had an OG at around 1.055 and the batch size was around 5.5 gallons. Both turned out fine and the belgian was especially good.

I also used Omega ( only 150 billion cells ) for 5-6 gallon batches at around 1.045.

 

[RM-MN]

Unless you pitch an enormous amount of yeast it will still propagate in the fermenter. You would need somewhere upwards of 5 times the predicted amount needed before you would likely notice the difference.

The amount of cells in a packet is really only an estimate. Do some research on yeast cell counts, notice the numbers in the count and then the multiplication factors and it will become obvious of that.

 

[Mothman]

Thanks!