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When should I be worried about yeast


BobbyBoy

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Due to life I’ve taken my time brewing my second beer. It’s a gluten free ale with lots of galaxy hopps. Hey did the boil last night and pitched dry yeast about 9:30pm. As of about 20mins ago there is no krausen that I can see. Yeast is US-05. At what point should I be worried?

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7 minutes ago, Greeny1525229549 said:

This time tomorrow night id be worried.

Thanks mate. Fingers crossed it’s all ok. First time doing extract brewing and first time used a fermentation freezer, so was pretty excited. Hope it all works out.

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Hi BobbyBoy,

Just checking the obvious, or not so obvious.  Do you have temperature control on the freezer and is it around 18 degrees?  Too low a temperature and your US-05 would be slow or maybe not start at all.  I do not know what that threshold temperature is though.

Hopefully fermentation has started by about now anyway.

Cheers Shamus

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15 hours ago, BobbyBoy said:

Due to life I’ve taken my time brewing my second beer. It’s a gluten free ale with lots of galaxy hopps. Hey did the boil last night and pitched dry yeast about 9:30pm. As of about 20mins ago there is no krausen that I can see. Yeast is US-05. At what point should I be worried?

All good points above. US05 temp range is 12c to 25c. Above or below is not good for the yeast. I tend to add yeast at the 22 - 24c mark and reduce to 18c. Found rehydrating  or reusing your yeast speeds up the primary fermentation process, normally after a few hours.

You might sneak it in by New Years if all goes well?

Cheers

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2 hours ago, Otto Von Blotto said:

Yeah 16 is pretty low unless you have the probe just dangling in the fridge, which isn't really ideal in itself. 

I find that yeast tends to go to sleep at around 15 or under, best at 18 degrees. 

I got the probe taped to the side of the fv with paper towels for insulation. I’d read somewhere that the perfect temp for us-05 was 15-21 and that the closer you get to the lower of that the better, hence going for 16. But, I’ll raise it tonight 👍🏻

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31 minutes ago, Otto Von Blotto said:

I believe 15-21 is the optimal range for it for best results in terms of flavor. I find the best temp is 18-19 with it. Low enough to be clean but warm enough to get the job done pretty quickly. It gets sluggish around 15-16. 

Good to know. Most likely why it took a while to get going out guess. Thank, as always, you’ve been very helpful.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I didn’t want to make a new thread, so here goes:

I pitch some WLP800 coming on 5 days ago and as of last night couldn’t see any visible signs of fermentation. I’ve heard it’s can be slow to start and I probably should’ve made a starter. I’ll put that down as lesson learned I guess. I’m worried that either I under pitched it (I used one liquid sachet for 9lts) or I did something else wrong.

 I will be checking the SG later today, but, what can I do if the is no change?

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Hey bobby, yes take a reading. Sometimes these can be slow to start and slow to ferment. Whats your temperature? I would say its not an underpitch for 9l. Starters are the way to go in the future if you have the time. Typically my lagers take 14 days at 10-12 deg.

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26 minutes ago, Titan said:

Hey bobby, yes take a reading. Sometimes these can be slow to start and slow to ferment. Whats your temperature? I would say its not an underpitch for 9l. Starters are the way to go in the future if you have the time. Typically my lagers take 14 days at 10-12 deg.

Hey Titan, temp is set to 11.5-12. The only reason I thought under pitching is when I googled the yeast I read that said people were suggesting 3-4 sachets for 21lt, which would equal 1.5-2 sachets for 9lts. This is my first larger and just a bit worried i stuffed it up. You could say I’m the ultimate worrier. 

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13 hours ago, BobbyBoy said:

Hey Titan, temp is set to 11.5-12. The only reason I thought under pitching is when I googled the yeast I read that said people were suggesting 3-4 sachets for 21lt, which would equal 1.5-2 sachets for 9lts. This is my first larger and just a bit worried i stuffed it up. You could say I’m the ultimate worrier. 

Give it 72 hours. If no signs of life, take a gravity reading. If no movement in SG, pitch a backup.

This happened to me once with a Wyeast Gambrinus lager yeast. I pitched one smack pack into 11l wort and nothing after 72 hours. So I pitched a couple of 7g packs of the Coopers ale/lager yeast blend and fermented at lager temps. Turned out great.

My mistake was ordering liquid yeast from Queensland, which must have suffered in transit to Canberra. It didn't do much when I smacked the pack but I though I'd give it a chance anyway. 

BTW 1 pack is plenty for a normal gravity 9l batch. In my experience people on the internet and yeast calculators tend to tell you that you need more yeast than you actually do. 

Cheers, 

John 

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One pack would be enough for 9 litres of ale but lagers need about double if you want a really good one. It still should have shown signs of activity, though it would depend on the manufacture date.

I usually make 21 litre lager batches at the moment and pitch nearly 400 billion cells into them - around 4 smack packs and that's if they're fresh. Hence making starters, $3.50 for the dry malt is a bit less than $40.50 for 3 more yeast packs 😂

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