Porter with Notty dry yeast problem

[Elweydoloco]

Hey guys,

The dilemna is, I have zero activity showing yeast growth. No gravity change, no bubbling in air lock, no bucket lid bulging. It's completely odd as if you read below, I did everything correctly, and I didn't temp shock the yeast either.

I brewed a porter the other night. Nothing special a typical run of the mill recipe. Mashed in hit my temps hit my OG .001 high. Cooled with the wort chiller in 10 minutes to 70ish.

I used Notty dry yeast and made a starter with warm water not hot I didn't shock it added a tablespoon of sugar. It balooned up like crazy as I gave it an hour it was in a container with a saran wrap cover. The container was sanitized.

Anyway I took all the proper steps to ensure no infections and to have a decent starter even though this was a lower gravity porter of 1.046, by all means I should have been OK sprinkling the yeast w/o a starter after hyrdating it.

I've now shook the crap out of it hoping to get some activity heated it up a little as well I had it at 62 in the ferm fridge it's now at 70.

Almost forgot, it's been 6 days since brew day.

I've got some S-04 I might make the starter and pitch it too.

 

[BradleyBrew]

did you take another gravity reading...? My experience with Notty is that it is very fast. You might have actually missed the main krausen, especially with rehydrating into a minor starter.

 

[Elweydoloco]

Yeah I've taken seperate gravity readings 3 days apart it's virtually unchanged. That and there is zero krausen when I popped the lid last night. I just don't see what would have done it is what's got me puzzled. I'm just gonna dump the S-04 and see what happens. If nothing off of that then I'm completely puzzled.

 

[GNBrews]

What did you use for sanitization prior to putting the wort into the fermenter? Is it possible that you've got residual sanitizer in the beer that may have stunted/killed the yeast?

 

[BradleyBrew]

I agree, I would pitch the S-04.

----------

Primary 1: Courage RIS
Primary 2: Bourbon Barrel Ale
Primary 3: Harp Lager
Primary 4: Bell's Best Brown

Bottled: Smoked Porter, Oaked Unearthly IIPA, Peanut Butter Porter, Samuel Smith's Winter Welcome, Belgian Dark Strong, Rogue Old Crustacean Barley Wine, Breakfast Stout, Fat Tire Clone, Belgian Saison, Copper Ale, Left Hand Milk Stout, Weizen Doppelbock, Pumpkin Ale, Honey Braggot

 

[Elweydoloco]

No it was starsan and the yeast was growing significantly in the first hour in the starter. I'm willing to bet I got all my growth cycle with the starter and little more with the beer as there was little sugar left in the starter and the yeast got lazy. Anyway I pitched the S-04 and all is well. Hooray!!!

 

[muthafuggle]

I wonder if adding the table sugar was what screwed you up there. This isn't bread we're making. All you need to do with the dry yeast is re-hydrate it. There is no growth stage prior to pitching like you have/want with liquid yeast and a starter. One of the things about dry yeast is that you don't NEED a starter. There should be enough viable yeast cells out of the package.

We want to encourage yeast that eat maltose, not sucrose or glucose. Starting them off on a diet of table sugar only encourages lazy yeast behavior.

Next time, just rehydrate the yeast and see how that goes.

 

[C-Rider]

Next time just sprinkle the dry yeast on the wort and seal it up.

 

[BradleyBrew]

I wonder if adding the table sugar was what screwed you up there. This isn't bread we're making. All you need to do with the dry yeast is re-hydrate it. There is no growth stage prior to pitching like you have/want with liquid yeast and a starter. One of the things about dry yeast is that you don't NEED a starter. There should be enough viable yeast cells out of the package.

We want to encourage yeast that eat maltose, not sucrose or glucose. Starting them off on a diet of table sugar only encourages lazy yeast behavior.

Next time, just rehydrate the yeast and see how that goes.

no you can add sugar to proof the yeast

John Palmer

Re-hydrating Dry Yeast
1. Put 1 cup of warm (95-105F, 35-40C) boiled water into a sanitized jar and stir in the yeast. Cover with Saran Wrap and wait 15 minutes.
2. "Proof" the yeast by adding one teaspoon of extract or sugar that has been boiled in a small amount of water. Allow the sugar solution to cool before adding it to the jar.
3. Cover and place in a warm area out of direct sunlight.
4. After 30 minutes or so the yeast should be visibly churning and/or foaming, and is ready to pitch.

 

[muthafuggle]

With all respect to St Palmer, that makes no sense. If its a bad idea to make a liquid starter with sucrose, why would that be okay with a dry starter? I'm not saying to doesn't work, but hell, this is beer we're talking about, it's pretty hard to eff up so badly it doesn't make beer.

With dry yeast there are supposedly enough cells that we don't need to propagate more. There are more than enough sugars in the wort for them to go to town on. The rehydration step is supposedly just to gently wake the wee buggers up gently. So they can be moved to phase two- chow time.

I started my original post by saying "I wonder if..." and I will stand by that. I suspect that using table sugar actually inhibits the yeast activity that we're trying to encourage. Too many brewers have great results with just water or even the sprinkler method to discount my suspicions.

 

[BradleyBrew]

Not sure if I want to argue because I dont agree with the practice of adding sugar while rehydrating dry yeast. I just rehydrate, but it is a practice that has been proven to proof yeast with extract or sugar. Its not really wrong but its not really correct either. I just wanted to highlight the fact that people do employ this method of rehydration. I think something else went wrong for the yeast not to ferment.

 

[ChillWill]

Rehydrate with water, if you use sugar, what's the point in rehydrating, may as well pitch dry into wort.

I rehydrate Nottingham with 90f water and it works a treat, sometimes I'll let it sit for over an hour before pitching. Pitch dry and I've found it lags.

 

[BradleyBrew]

Its already rehydrated... just add sugar or extract to get the yeast going.

I have the same response time with notty when its directly pitched or rehydrated

 

[Yooper]

no you can add sugar to proof the yeast

John Palmer

Re-hydrating Dry Yeast
1. Put 1 cup of warm (95-105F, 35-40C) boiled water into a sanitized jar and stir in the yeast. Cover with Saran Wrap and wait 15 minutes.
2. "Proof" the yeast by adding one teaspoon of extract or sugar that has been boiled in a small amount of water. Allow the sugar solution to cool before adding it to the jar.
3. Cover and place in a warm area out of direct sunlight.
4. After 30 minutes or so the yeast should be visibly churning and/or foaming, and is ready to pitch.

Palmer says in his newer versions not to do that anymore, instead to just follow the manufacturer's advice! The dehydrated yeast can benefit from rehydrating but to add sugar is NOT advised!

 

[BradleyBrew]

thanks, i wasnt doing that anyways. I guess I need the new edition lol

 

[badhabit]

I wonder if adding the table sugar was what screwed you up there. This isn't bread we're making. All you need to do with the dry yeast is re-hydrate it. There is no growth stage prior to pitching like you have/want with liquid yeast and a starter. One of the things about dry yeast is that you don't NEED a starter. There should be enough viable yeast cells out of the package.

We want to encourage yeast that eat maltose, not sucrose or glucose. Starting them off on a diet of table sugar only encourages lazy yeast behavior.

Next time, just rehydrate the yeast and see how that goes.

+1 I would say in fact that making a "starter" rather than just rehydrating dry yeast is contraindicated for the above stated reasons.