unintentional high gravity ale

[Troxs]

So yesterday (Thursday 2/18/10) I gave my first almost all grain brew a go, and now I am a bit curious as some of the information from my LHBS/Online. I am not sure if I pitched enough yeast; as I was originally going to pitch 2 packs of wyeast 1056 american ale, but the guy at the shop said one should be enough. My OG landed in around 1.079, but was intended for 1.064. I pitched the yeast in and did not really think much about it until now though, as I keep seeing things about under pitched yeast causing horrible flavors.

I did not make a starter, just slapped and let it expand then pitched into 70*F wort. The earliest I will be able to get to the brew shop will be next week; should I go and buy another pack or two to add or should it be fine?

 

[TipsyDragon]

well with a OG of 1.079 you probably should of pitched 3 packets. the LHBS guy probably thought you where gong to make a starter. i never make starters and prefer to pitch multiple packets like you wanted to do. under pitching wont be all that bad. i've done it in the past and the beer was fine.

if your seeing CO2 production then adding more yeast at this point is pointless. the yeast have already multiplied to their desired population.

next time go here and calculate your pitch rate and ignore the LHBS guy.

 

[Laughing_Gnome_Invisible]

The yeast is in there whether under pitched or not. Personally (And I'm sure others will disagree) I would let it go as is and use it as a part of your learning. If you get off flavours, then you will have a starting point to fix the next brew.

 

[GMesick]

The yeast is in there whether under pitched or not. Personally (And I'm sure others will disagree) I would let it go as is and use it as a part of your learning. If you get off flavours, then you will have a starting point to fix the next brew.

Agree. Fermentation is under way. Whatever yeast you had has increased. Let it go. It will probably be just fine.

 

[Troxs]

I had a bock with a higher gravity, and it now has a sour smell... could this have been the problem I had?

 

[eggbeater59]

is it still fermenting? never base a beer's potential flavor on the smells you get during the fermentation process. if the smell stayed consitent through the entire process, half of my beers would have tasted like skunk-puree.
yeast creates some pretty nasty smells and flavors, then goes back and cleans them up later after all of the good sugars are gone.

 

[Troxs]

I just got home from work, and this morning I brought the temp up a bit which now it is producing 1-2 bubbles out the air lock every minute so hopefully it just stalled, and is now working itself out.

If not I really have to figure out what went wrong to avoid this later

 

[Troxs]

Still has a nasty sour smell coming from the carboy...

 

[robertvrabel]

well with a OG of 1.079 you probably should of pitched 3 packets. the LHBS guy probably thought you where gong to make a starter. i never make starters and prefer to pitch multiple packets like you wanted to do. under pitching wont be all that bad. i've done it in the past and the beer was fine.

if your seeing CO2 production then adding more yeast at this point is pointless. the yeast have already multiplied to their desired population.

next time go here and calculate your pitch rate and ignore the LHBS guy.

You seriously pitch 3 packets of yeast for a 1.079 OG beer? That seems ridiculous to me... you must spend so much money on yeast since its about $6-7 a pack!

I've made two beers around 1.080, using 1 pack each... and they both turned out just fine w/o starters. I'm sure its all random, and based on how old the yeast is... but 3 seems a bit overkill.

 

[sp1365]

Still has a nasty sour smell coming from the carboy...

Don't worry. Fermentation smells terrible probably 7 or 8 out of 10 times. When I brewed my Cali Common with WLP081 the smell was horrendous. It smelled like death and farts. Fast forward to this past weekend when the beer was ready to be tasted and the flavor/aroma were wonderful.

Let the yeast to their job then wait for your beer to condition, and then see if anything went wrong.

 

[Troxs]

It was in primary for a week and then transfered to secondary and has been in there 10 days