Yeast lost through blowoff?

[tardisode]

So i brewed a weizenbock with three packages of wyeast weizepthan wheat, which was the correct pitcting amount per the brewing classic styles recipe, I did a gravity reading about a week and a half after pitching and the OG was 1.08ish (lost my notes ) the gravity reading i took was at 1.04( Projected was 1.029ish) and it tasted kinda watery and devoid of real flavor. I had a pretty vigirous fermenation and lost about .5 gallons out the blowoff. Could i have lost a lost of vaible yeast out of the tube and therefore underpitched the batch? Im not stressing too much at this point, as ive got several tasty beers to drink and have learned pateince is a virtue in brewing but just had to ask the question.

Edit: was fermented at 63 F, ambient temp.

 

[apratsunrthd]

Are you saying it's at 1.040 right now? It should taste anything but watery and devoid of flavor --it should be quite sweet at that gravity. To answer your question --yes, you can blow off healthy, krausening yeast through a blow off tube so I suppose you technically could end up underpitched but I've never run into this issue. The BCS recipe says to pitch 3 liquid packages. Did you actually pitch that much? Was it relatively fresh?

 

[tardisode]

yeah it was less then 2 weeks old on all three yeast packages. and yeah its around 1.04 ATM. let the bag swell up pretty damn good, brewed a hefe like 2 weeks prior and came out great, using the same yeast, though not as much. I may or may not have been a little sauced when i tasted it. Ill take another reading tonight.

 

[helibrewer]

If fermentation was vigorous enough to blow .5 gallons you were not underpitched.

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

If fermentation was vigorous enough to blow .5 gallons you were not underpitched.

He is referring to the yeast count after blowoff, not prior.

 

[helibrewer]

Understood, what I'm saying is if the population was high enough to cause that kind of activity his yeast count was plenty high...very little yeast goes out the blow off compared to what's in the fermenter.

I'll bet there is at least 1" of lees in that fermenter, it wouldn't hurt to rouse the lees.

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

Understood, what I'm saying is if the population was high enough to cause that kind of activity his yeast count was plenty high...very little yeast goes out the blow off compared to what's in the fermenter.

I'll bet there is at least 1" of lees in that fermenter, it wouldn't hurt to rouse the lees.

I concur.