Wyeast smack-packs, etc.

[BrewMU]

I've been reading how important it is to pitch a healthy crop of yeast, so this is probably a dumb question: is it necessary to transfer the activated yeast from a Wyeast smack-pack to a starter, or is the pack itself enough? I've been pitching directly, and it seems to work fine, but am I shortchanging my fermentation?

Next d.q.: I force carbed my first all grain batch, a medium-light pale ale, and it worked fine, but my current batch is a stout with an OG of 1.065, so I figured it needed more time and bottled with a primer. Is it possible that a 15 day old stout (the gravity was down to 1.018; with the carmel and roasted malts/grains I didn't expect it to drop much more than that) is at or near the point of diminishing returns for aging?

Last one: if I had forced my stout, is it practical to bottle from a keg and have fully carbed beer that will hold up for storage?

Appreciate any help

 

[muthafuggle]

I've been reading how important it is to pitch a healthy crop of yeast, so this is probably a dumb question: is it necessary to transfer the activated yeast from a Wyeast smack-pack to a starter, or is the pack itself enough? I've been pitching directly, and it seems to work fine, but am I shortchanging my fermentation?

Next d.q.: I force carbed my first all grain batch, a medium-light pale ale, and it worked fine, but my current batch is a stout with an OG of 1.065, so I figured it needed more time and bottled with a primer. Is it possible that a 15 day old stout (the gravity was down to 1.018; with the carmel and roasted malts/grains I didn't expect it to drop much more than that) is at or near the point of diminishing returns for aging?

Last one: if I had forced my stout, is it practical to bottle from a keg and have fully carbed beer that will hold up for storage?

Appreciate any help

In a nutshell, yes you are almost certainly short changing your beer by not using a starter for all but the lightest beers (light in alcohol, not color). Mr Malty has all the goods on how much yeast to pitch and why.

The question of aging can be controversial around here. While there is no possible way that 15 days is too long to age your beer, you are probably not aging it long enough. Time can do good things to beer, and until you get a LOT more batches under your belt, I'd suggest at least three weeks in the bucket/carboy , bottling the beer and then another two to three weeks wait at minimum once it's bottled. Of course, actually waiting that long is kind of a good trick when you can pull it off. Brew often and have a full pipeline or the patience of a saint would be my two suggestions. Again, I'm talking optimal, not drinkable, beer.

 

[starrfish]

20+ days in primary is not too long... if I dry hop that will not happen until day 20 or more OG of 1065 may sit for 30 days dry hop or not... since I started kegging its hard to resist drinking green beer but beer tastes best after a few weeks of carbing just like the bottle process.

 

[mrgstiffler]

Yeast Pitching Rate calculator:

http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html

 

[moose123]

if im not mistaken the back of the those packets say a larger quanity of yeast will be needed for beers over 1.060 but then again those packets tell you to ferment at 72 degrees. Anyway in short i support muthafuggle which by the way is a great screan name

 

[Revvy]

The biggest reason I suggest folks make a starter is if you make one you'll have peace of mind. It's especially important if you have questionable situation happenning with your yeast, like not being sure the yeast arrived healthy.

And you won't be starting an "is my yeast dead" thread in a couple of days.

Making a starter first insures that your yeast is still alive and viable before you dump it in your beer. You will be less likely to start one of those "is my yeast dead?" threads that are on here every day.

You will also ensure that you have enough yeast usually the tubes and smack packs are a lot less yeast that you really should use for healthy fermentation.

Making a starter also usually means your beer will take off sooner, because the first thing that the little buggers do in the presence of wort (whether in a flask or in a fermenter) is have an orgy to reproduce enough cells to do the job...So it won't take such a long time in the fermenter since they started doing it in the flask.

Additionally it is better for the yeast to consume and reproduce incrementally rather than just dumping them into the fermenter...The yeast will be less stressed out than if you just dump them in.

Stressed out yeast can lead to a lot of off flavors...maybe even (though rare) the dreaded autolysis....Or the curse of 1.030....getting a stuck fermentation because the yeast have bit the dust.

So making a starter proves your yeast is still healthy, allows you to grow enough yeast to do the job, cuts down on lag time, and ensures that you will not get off flavors or stuck ferementations from stressed out yeast.

Also has to do with the actual pitch rates of the smack packs and tubes, and has to do with the data that Jamil Z has on his mr malty website.

I'll quote some of it, but really you should look at the stuff there;

http://www.mrmalty.com/pitching.php

Ales & Lagers

The general consensus on pitching rates is that you want to pitch around 1 million cells of viable yeast, for every milliliter of wort, for every degree plato. A little less for an ale, a little more for a lager. George Fix states about 1.5 million for a lager and 0.75 million for an ale in his book, An Analysis of Brewing Techniques. Other literature cites a slightly higher amount. I'm going with Fix's numbers and that is what the pitching calculator uses.
The Math

If you're curious, here is the simple math to calculate the number of cells needed. For an ale, you want to pitch around 0.75 million cells of viable yeast (0.75 million for an ale, 1.5 million for a lager), for every milliliter of wort, for every degree plato.

(0.75 million) X (milliliters of wort) X (degrees Plato of the wort)

* There is about 3785 milliliters in a gallon. There are about 20,000 milliliters in 5.25 gallons.

* A degree Plato is about 1.004 of original gravity. Just divide the OG by 4 to get Plato (e.g., 1.048 is 12 degrees Plato).

So, for a 1.048 wort pitching into 5.25 gallons you need about 180 billion cells.

(750,000) X (20,000) X (12) = 180,000,000,000

As an easy to remember rough estimate, you need about 15 billion cells for each degree Plato or about 4 billion cells for each point of OG when pitching into a little over 5 gallons of wort. If you want a quick way of doing a back of the envelope estimate, that is really close to 0.75 billion cells for each point of gravity per gallon of wort. Double that to 1.5 billion for a lager.
Pitching From Tubes, Packs, or Dry Yeast

Both White Labs and Wyeast make fantastic products and you can't go wrong with either one. There are differences between their strains and each brand has pluses and minuses yet neither is better than the other across the board. Use the brand your local homebrew shop carries, if you need a way to decide.

A White Labs tube has between 70 and 120 billion cells of 100% viable yeast, depending on the yeast strain. Some cells are much larger than others and there are more or less per ml based on size. (The information on the White Labs web site stating 30 to 50 billion cells is out of date.) We can just assume there are around 100 billion very healthy yeast. You would need 2 tubes if you were pitching directly into 5.5 gallons of 1.048 wort to get the proper cell counts.

A Wyeast Activator pack (the really big ones) and the pitchable tubes have an average of 100 billion cells of 100% viable yeast. The smaller packs are around 15-18 billion cells. You would need 2 of the large packs if you were pitching directly into 5.5 gallons of 1.048 wort to get the proper cell counts. For the small packs, you'd need eleven of them!

But to make it easier he has a great pitch rate calculator http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html

And according to his numbers on his calculator, really any beer above 1.020, you should be making a starter for.

Me personally when I use liquid yeast I just make a starter. I may not be as anal as some brewers and makes sure that I have the exact cellcount for whatever gravity beer I am making, but I do make one for the above reasons I mentioned, namely peace of mid, and a reduction in lag time.

Seriously, that's one way to insure you have clean tasting beer, not to stress out or underpitch your yeast. You may find the "bothering" to make a starter will make even the less than best kit beer come out tasting great.

 

[mrgstiffler]

Me personally when I use liquid yeast I just make a starter. I may not be as anal as some brewers and makes sure that I have the exact cellcount for whatever gravity beer I am making, but I do make one for the above reasons I mentioned, namely peace of mid, and a reduction in lag time.

Seriously, that's one way to insure you have clean tasting beer, not to stress out or underpitch your yeast. You may find the "bothering" to make a starter will make even the less than best kit beer come out tasting great.

Well put. I always make a 2L starter no matter what I'm brewing. Sometimes that's underpitching, sometimes it's over. Half a bag of malt extract, fill to the line. It's simple every time.

 

[muthafuggle]

if im not mistaken the back of the those packets say a larger quanity of yeast will be needed for beers over 1.060 but then again those packets tell you to ferment at 72 degrees. Anyway in short i support muthafuggle which by the way is a great screan name

Thanks Moose!

 

[OHIOSTEVE]

DAMMIT, so I need to make a starter for this smack pack I plan on using later tonight? SO I smack the pack, when it swells up dump the entire contents into a starter? Can that be accomplished by this evening? or will brewing have to be put off until tomorrow?

 

[Revvy]

DAMMIT, so I need to make a starter for this smack pack I plan on using later tonight? SO I smack the pack, when it swells up dump the entire contents into a starter? Can that be accomplished by this evening? or will brewing have to be put off until tomorrow?

If you're going to make a starter, don't bother smacking the pack, just cut it open, yeastfood and all and dump it into your starter wort.

 

[paulster2626]

DAMMIT, so I need to make a starter for this smack pack I plan on using later tonight? SO I smack the pack, when it swells up dump the entire contents into a starter? Can that be accomplished by this evening? or will brewing have to be put off until tomorrow?

If you can put it off, put it off. If you can't, brew.

Just remember to give the starter a good swirling all day long.

Alternatively you could use dry yeast instead.

 

[OHIOSTEVE]

If you're going to make a starter, don't bother smacking the pack, just cut it open, yeastfood and all and dump it into your starter wort.

ok thanks

 

[OHIOSTEVE]

If you can put it off, put it off. If you can't, brew.

Just remember to give the starter a good swirling all day long.

Alternatively you could use dry yeast instead.

well the recipe I am trying calls for a specific yeast. I made the starter, got the smack pack out to activate it and dump the entire contents like revvy said. I felt and felt and felt and could not find the inner packet. I cut the top open and the inside packet had already been busted. It has been kept cold so hopefully it is still good. I have it in the starter and hope to brew late tonight.

 

[70Cuda383]

outside of your already broken nutrient bag...


I've done 3 or 4 batches now with the smack packs, just whack them, wait till they swell up and start brewing. I've not had any problems with them.

that being said, and after reading here about how important starters are...I'm sure something bad's gonna happen to me now, like this current wheat beer will stall out and my yeast will die because I didn't do a starter!

 

[BrewMU]

Thanks for the help. Sounds like a starter is a good idea. Can I brew then steal a quart of wort, pitch the yeast into it, then pitch that into my batch the next day? Day after that?

 

[Revvy]

Thanks for the help. Sounds like a starter is a good idea. Can I brew then steal a quart of wort, pitch the yeast into it, then pitch that into my batch the next day? Day after that?

Yeah those are called "real wort starters" they're really big with the no-chill brewing crowd, before they dump their boiling wort into the cube to let vacuum seal while it cools, they pull out a quart of wort to make a starter with....Since it's going to be a day or 2 before the cube is cool enough to pitch anyway the have time for a starter.

 

[paulster2626]

Man - smaked a wyeast irish ale last night to get it started for Friday, and wow. Within 30 minutes it was swollen a LOT, but left it while I went over to a buddy's to watch the game so my starter could cool down.

Came home and that thing was ready to burst! Pitched it, went to bed, and woke up to a mess around the flask. Lucky I just left it in the kitchen sink all night.

This yeast is crazy. Excited to put it to work tomorrow!

 

[mrgstiffler]

Man - smaked a wyeast irish ale last night to get it started for Friday, and wow. Within 30 minutes it was swollen a LOT, but left it while I went over to a buddy's to watch the game so my starter could cool down.

Came home and that thing was ready to burst! Pitched it, went to bed, and woke up to a mess around the flask. Lucky I just left it in the kitchen sink all night.

This yeast is crazy. Excited to put it to work tomorrow!

I had the same thing with the Wyeast Weihenstephan Weizen. That stuff was nuts.