Some yeast advice anyone?

[mscroggi]

I am new to homebrewing, and just brewed my third batch.. All grain.. this an American Wheat from an online kit. Everything is fine with the brew, except I am concerned about the yeast.

The yeast arrived in the package with the other ingredients, but the plastic envelope with the yeast in it was open, and the ice pack had melted and the yeast felt warm. I am worried the yeast might be depleted due to the conditions.

I pitched the yeast 3 days ago.. There is some activity in the fermenter.. but it certainly doesn't seem to be as active as my two past brew experiences. Very little seems to be going on in there.

This is my first time to use liquid yeast. My prior two brewing rounds were done with dry yeast.

The yeast being used is the White Labs WLP001. Fermentation temperature is 67 degrees.

Is this to be expected with the liquid yeast?

I don't really want to let it sit for two weeks and then discover it hasn't fermented properly, and have to go another round.

I have another pack of yeast that was part of the warm shipment, and I have a new one I picked up from my local homebrew shop...

What would you do? Wait it out? Pitch in the second one that arrived warm (thinking that there is good yeast in there but maybe the numbers are just down)? Pitch in the new one and eat the cost of the one that arrived warm? Is it even considered acceptable to use a second batch of yeast?

Does this look like what you would expect? My prior brew was a pale.. with dry yeast and the foam on the didn't look near as uniform as this.

Any advice is appreciated!

 

[Kent88]

Looks ok to me.

Always pays to have a backup yeast.

 

[z-bob]

It looks okay to me too. I would leave it alone and let it finish. Did you aerate the wort when you pitched the yeast? That's more important with liquid yeast than with dry.

 

[flars]

What was the OG of the beer? Most likely this was an under pitch for two reasons. A starter is almost always required with liquid yeast and the yeast arrived warm. I will deduct 10% from the viability when yeast has arrived warm.

Optimum fermentation temperature for WLP001 is 68° to 73°F. You do have fermentation activity so I would let it go and plan starters for the next use of liquid yeast. Bump the temperature of the fermenting beer up to 70°F. A very severe under pitch may stress the yeast and cause some extra esters to be produced but after three days this has happened if it was going to happen.

This is the pitch rate/starter calculator I like to use. How do your numbers fit in the calculator for the age of the yeast and a 10% viability deduction for the yeast being delivered warm?
http://www.brewunited.com/yeast_calculator.php

Check the SG in seven more days and taste the hydrometer sample. Let us know how the fermentation progresses.

 

[mscroggi]

It looks okay to me too. I would leave it alone and let it finish. Did you aerate the wort when you pitched the yeast? That's more important with liquid yeast than with dry.

No I did not do any aeration of the wort.. Thats good to know! .. I will search out.. Many thanks!

 

[mscroggi]

What was the OG of the beer? Most likely this was an under pitch for two reasons. A starter is almost always required with liquid yeast and the yeast arrived warm. I will deduct 10% from the viability when yeast has arrived warm.

Optimum fermentation temperature for WLP001 is 68° to 73°F. You do have fermentation activity so I would let it go and plan starters for the next use of liquid yeast. Bump the temperature of the fermenting beer up to 70°F. A very severe under pitch may stress the yeast and cause some extra esters to be produced but after three days this has happened if it was going to happen.

This is the pitch rate/starter calculator I like to use. How do your numbers fit in the calculator for the age of the yeast and a 10% viability deduction for the yeast being delivered warm?
http://www.brewunited.com/yeast_calculator.php

Check the SG in seven more days and taste the hydrometer sample. Let us know how the fermentation progresses.

The OG came in at 1.042. Thanks for the info! I will look into doing a starter on my next try. I will do as you say and let it ride. Many thanks!

 

[mscroggi]

Is it a bad thing to not do a yeast starter? Does it just require more fermentation time?
Reading up on doing liquid yeasts and the yeast starters... I would like to know how much success people have had with liquid yeast without doing a starter...

I have just bought a Wyeast.. With its collapsible internal chamber, does this serve as a starter? The label would seem to indicate that.

 

[day_trippr]

It's really a math problem: yeast has a shelf life. The longer it sits around the fewer viable cells are in that package. Meanwhile the beer volume and gravity of a given brew requires a certain viable cell count to ferment properly. So if the viable cell count of your store-bought pack isn't up to snuff for whatever reason you either need to buy more yeast - or propagate what you bought to reach the required cell count.

The Wyeast smack pack has a small "nutrient pouch" inside - that's the thing you pop. It presumably gets the yeast all woken up and ready to do their thing - kind of like hors d’oeuvres for the yeast before the main meal. But it's not really a starter - there's not enough "food" there and the conditions aren't right for doing much more than activating the surviving yeast count. A true starter is a multiplying exercise to increase the viable cell count and requires substantial nutrients and a more optimal environment than what's found inside a small foil pack.

I've never pitched liquid yeast without a starter because I do 10 gallon batches while consumer yeast packaging is geared towards five gallon batches. Rather than buy two or more packs I do the starter thing. (Actually I rarely even buy yeast as I "ranch" the strains I use. But I digress...)

To figure out how much yeast a recipe needs, how viable a pack is given its creation date, and how to create a yeast starter (or multi-stepped starter) from either a pack or from stored yeast, this calculator is pretty friendly and easy to use...

https://www.brewersfriend.com/yeast-pitch-rate-and-starter-calculator/

Cheers!