Hi all,
I'm brewing with liquid yeast for the first time, and have been storing it the fridge. Thing is, that it is gone compact in the bottom, and very liquidy on top, is it still ok or could it be gone if it has ben too warm too long?
Yeast always flocculates (clumps together) at low temperatures. I'd be more worried if there wasn't some separation happening.
Let it rise to room temp and give it a good shake to mix it all together again prior to pitching. Are you planning to use a starter?
no, don't have that planned, brewin a double IPA, first BIAB brew!! :)
If you're planning to use just one vial, I'd strongly recommend a starter. DIPA's are big beers that require lots of healthy yeast to make sure you get a good attenuation and a nice clean finish (to let the hops shine).
Try using the Mr Malty yeast pitch calculator (http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html).
Hi Nordic Man,
I have to go with Dr Jacoby on that too and warn that your beer at that strength won't be as nice as you can make it.
Those vials start with about 100 billion cells and are generally only for direct pitches to a beer of around 1.040 or less, at a volume of around 19L
I can't recommend a starter enough.
If you can't use a stir plate try to just make a stationary starter and give her a good shake every few hours to increase bio-mass.
If you just go straight in you'll stress the yeast to the point of creating some nasty alcohol flavours that won't mellow out before the hops are a distant memory.
+1 on what is said here. :)
Thanks for good advice!
I think I'll try to make a starter. Another new adventure:-)
OG is around 1092, so say the book here, so guess I should make one...
how do I make a stationary starter?
How much sauce are you making and what's the date on the yeast vial?
There are various ways. Here's what I do. Get yourself some dry malt extract (DME). For a 1 litre starter, add 100 grams of DME to 1 litre of water and boil for 10 minutes. This will yield wort with a gravity of roughly 1.040, which is an ideal density for growing yeast (the point of a starter is not to produce alcohol, it is to grow yeast). This ratio of 10 parts water to 1 part DME can be scaled for any starter size. It will always produce a medium strength wort.
Next, cool your starter volume to pitching temperater (say, 20C), pitch your vial of yeast (also at 20C) into the starter and give it all a good shake. Try to keep the starter at roughly 20C for 24-48 hours. Shake it as often as possible to keep the yeast in suspension.
On brew day, when you are ready to pitch your yeast, you can either chuck the whole starter in or let it settle and decant off the liquid and pitch just the yeast sludge. That's pretty much it.
For the perfectionists out there, you could add yeast nutrient when you boil the starter wort and build yourself a stir plate to keep the yeast in suspension throughout the growth phase. In any case, using a starter will give you better results that using a vial alone.
I'm making 22 liter, and the date is best before 10. of July. It's a WLP007.
Yeah looking at this now and it says you'd need in the region of 4L without a stir plate.
Why not use your vial for a medium sized brew and then pitch the slurry into your double IPA when that's done? Means you can avoid the starter just for the moment too.
mr malty say I should have 3,2 vials... I don't have that, hmm, what to do..... No DME either.
someone around Clonakilty with some DME ?? :)
Do a nice session beer with your yeast right now. Something around 1.036 so as not to stress or kill the yeast.
When you siphon the beer off keep the yeast cake and pitch that into that big lovely DIPA.
Well, the grain has been in the "mashtun" (my pot) for about an hour. There are about 23 liters of water in there, guess around 13 left when I take out the grain. Should I take some of that wort and boil it for 10 minutes and chill it and put my yeast in that?
Here's the Mr Malty result:
(http://i96.photobucket.com/albums/l173/dudleyp/StarterSize.png) (http://s96.photobucket.com/user/dudleyp/media/StarterSize.png.html)
I'd take Alex's advice unless you have the ability to make a huge starter. Brew something for the summer beer competition!
Yep, that's a good option. If it's of medium strength (1.030 - 1.040) then go for it. If it's higher than that, dilute it accordingly.
If I dillute it, how will the flavour be? Should I just pour most of my wort out and dillute with water till OG is 1040?
I suppose so. You should change the hops for the boil accordingly as well I suppose. Didn't realise you're actually in the middle of a brew!
Wonder if I should just not make this today. Prefer to make a proper starter and get the beer right instead of using all the hops and yeast and make bad beer...
I'm not sure what you're asking. I was talking about diluting the starter wort that you remove from the main batch if the main batch was of a higher gravity than 1.040. You could just scoop out 1 litre (or whatever) and dilute it down accordingly.
If you plan to ferment that main batch so that you can re-pitch the yeast for a bigger beer next time around, you can just dilute that too. You can dilute before, during or after the boil. It's safest to do so before or during the boil but you'll have to calculate how much additional water to use so that you end up with the right amount at the end of the boil. There are calculators out there that will help you out.
I really think it's best to do it with slurry so I'd recommend actually do this brew at low gravity and you've a whole lotta yeast to use for a big bomb in 10 days. A starter for that would be too big without a stir plate.
This is so odd, my reading is 1022 after sparging, well pouring over 80 degree water.Could I then use 1 liter of that and make a starter?
I'll give it a go and see how this turns out :) Think maby there was a problem with the mashing, a bit too much grain for the size of the pot. I'll give it a goanyway! Making a starter and see how itturns out!