Yeast Pitching question

Brewer #73650

New Member
Trial Member
Joined
Apr 15, 2017
Messages
26
Reaction score
7
Points
3
Hi guys,

I will brew tomorrow an American Pale Ale I already did before and came out great. 11L batch, The OG=1046, FG 1020 (the estimation was 1012). I used one pack of Safale S-04 (11.5 gr).
I am trying to recreate the same batch but I have only 7 gr. from the same yeast. I used the calculator and seems that I am missing some yeast and recommended a starter. I don;t have DME, should I use water sugar? What quantity should be fine? I am planning on using 1L of water.
Cells Available:
56 billion cells
Pitch Rate As-Is:
0.44M cells / mL / °P
Target Pitch Rate Cells:
96 billion cells
Difference:
-40 billion cells

The calculator recommended me the following:
DME Required:
3.6 oz, 102.7 g
Growth Rate:
1.0
Inoculation Rate: 56.0M cells/mL
Ending Cell Count:
111 billion cells
Resulting Pitch Rate:
0.86M cells / mL / °P


Thanks,
Mircea
 
put the yeast in sugar water for a day, let it create more yeast and you'll be fine
 
Cool, this is what I was needed. Reading so much about it today, no answer that exactly as you did.
Thanks again,

Cheers,
 
I've used half of an 11 gram packet for batches of 2.5 gallons. Your 7 grams will ferment your batch size at 1.046 just fine. Hydrate it for best results and pitch it about 67 degrees and keep it right at that temp throughout. It'll be perfect.
 
Hi there Mircea,
Noteworthy to say when preparing the yeast starter use a sterile and clean jar/flask with some sort of air-lock. Bring the water to a boil, add your priming "sugar" to the flask and pour the boiling water over it. Let it cool down in the flask; sterilizes the equipment and makes sure that there is no contamination.
In general you want to have a starting O.G. of about 1.035-1.042 so on average I would say about 100g/Liter of DME or about 7.5g/L of sugar, but you can also use Honey or various kinds of sugars based on the beer-style you want to make and on which sugars you want to "prime" your yeast too.
As pure sugar is quite "plane" and lacks those tasty nutrients the yeast crave for (add at least 1/4 - 1/2 teaspoon of yeast nutrients per 2.5L starter), the yeast will slightly modify its metabolic turnover, thats why its usually preferred to use DME for yeast starters (or ideally you safe some wort of your last brew session which you can simply freeze and then use it again the next time for your yeast starter).
Once the "sugar-water" is cooled down to about 65F add your yeast and put the air-lock on.
If you have a stir-plate at hand use it, it will allow a more homogeneous yeast-growth, otherwise try to shake the flask every couple of hours whenever you have time. With a stir-plate a yeast starter usually takes about 1-1.5 days without and manual shaking give it at least 2-3 days.

Hope that helps,
Cheers.
 
Well my current throw together ale was a brew on a whim style beer and I didn't have any yeast spun up. I did a quick RWS from some 10minute boil wort on some newly cultured coopers ale yeast. I spun this up over night 8ish hours and pitched this into brew next morning after. Now there didn't seem to be much signs of fermentation in that flask. But this morning the krausen is nice and thick and fluffy. I went out yesterday to by an emergency back up of dry English ale yeast but let the brew go another day to see if the yeast would catch on and glad I did. So sometimes you may not need as much yeast as you think.:)

I'm yet to get a taste of a sample yet though. That coopers yeast is pretty resilient stuff I'm starting to grow fond of my new ale strain.
 
So, I add 25 gr of sugar to 1 L water, let it sit for one day shaking slow from time to time. At the end it was good activity and yeast seems to multiply ok. I think pitch to the worth and the fermentation starts in within hours (2-3). All seems to be just good. Let's see the results now, but seems to be good. I'll let you know how it came out.

Cheers
 
Hi there Mircea,
Noteworthy to say when preparing the yeast starter use a sterile and clean jar/flask with some sort of air-lock. Bring the water to a boil, add your priming "sugar" to the flask and pour the boiling water over it. Let it cool down in the flask; sterilizes the equipment and makes sure that there is no contamination.
In general you want to have a starting O.G. of about 1.035-1.042 so on average I would say about 100g/Liter of DME or about 7.5g/L of sugar, but you can also use Honey or various kinds of sugars based on the beer-style you want to make and on which sugars you want to "prime" your yeast too.
As pure sugar is quite "plane" and lacks those tasty nutrients the yeast crave for (add at least 1/4 - 1/2 teaspoon of yeast nutrients per 2.5L starter), the yeast will slightly modify its metabolic turnover, thats why its usually preferred to use DME for yeast starters (or ideally you safe some wort of your last brew session which you can simply freeze and then use it again the next time for your yeast starter).
Once the "sugar-water" is cooled down to about 65F add your yeast and put the air-lock on.
If you have a stir-plate at hand use it, it will allow a more homogeneous yeast-growth, otherwise try to shake the flask every couple of hours whenever you have time. With a stir-plate a yeast starter usually takes about 1-1.5 days without and manual shaking give it at least 2-3 days.

Hope that helps,
Cheers.
DME works well for starters, but NEVER plain sugar, honey, fruit juice ect. When yeast are put into a simple sugar such as glucose and sucrose, it causes a crabtree affect on the yeast and very little to no grow occurs. Even DME contains @ 10% glucose/sucrose, but there's not enough to harm the yeast. Adding yeast nutrients will help, but is a poor substitute for mashed barley sugars, which contain calcium, lipids, proteins, etc.

Some yeast will do fine in high sugar environments, such as wine yeast, but even then special care is taken to hydrate the yeast with Go-Ferm and the yeast are fed nutrients over several days (staggered nutrient additions). Beer yeast, no so much.
 
Soooo, it's got to be DME then? There seems to be some conflicting advice here (not unusual in our hobby). How about corn sugar? Or does that behave the same as table sugar in a yeast starter?
 
Soooo, it's got to be DME then? There seems to be some conflicting advice here (not unusual in our hobby). How about corn sugar? Or does that behave the same as table sugar in a yeast starter?
For a starter, DME, LME (diluted) or a 1.030 wort. Simple sugars don't have the nutrients the yeast need and by growing them in wort, they're conditioned to digest maltose.
 
Thanks. I'm working on a Sierra Nevada ale clone using DME but the original recipe called for a yeast starter, so I wondered about the sugarwater thing. I cut the recipe in half and subbed in DME for most of the 2-row, making it a partial mash (I think). It's not likely to be the exact same thing but should be drinkable. I'll share the recipe if it doesn't turn out to be total crap.
 
What was your actual recipe ? you still need some base malt to provide enzymes to convert the sugars from the spec malts .

Think about how a change in diet knocks you around , the poor yeasties get lazy when you only feed them simple sugars so when they get pitched into a complex sugar wort they simply can't handle it properly .
I don't own a stirplate yet but use a cleaned and sanitised 3 litre juice bottle and shake it regularly to keep the yeast in suspension , not quite as effective as a stir plate but not got around to building one yet
 
I'm making a half batch of Ozarks Mountain Brew's Sierra Nevada Pale Ale clone (you see how many folks are doing that?! Must've turned out pretty good), but I'm only using one pound of the two-row and making up the difference with three pounds of extra light DME. It's probably not going to be the finest brew out there but I'm not set up for a full all-grain yet so we'll see how it goes in a couple of weeks.
 
the 2 row is just the base so its fine to not use it at all if you have enough dme but if not you need to steep it for at least 30 minutes at 152 to even make a difference
 
Just what I planned on OMB. I'm trying to follow your recipe as close as I can. I've got a pound of 2row and 1/2# of the other stuff so it seemed to come close to your figures when I plugged it all into the brew calculator. I just scaled your recipe to 1/2 and fiddled around with things til it came out right. Fingers crossed
 
OMB, your recipe calls for 2oz of hops (1oz for me) at 0 minutes. I'm not sure how this works. Do you dump the hops in at flameout, immediately cool the wort down and transfer to the fermenter? Does this give the hops enough time to do anything? Do you leave the hops in the fermenter or strain them out? I'm confused (not unusual for me).
 
you add the hops at flame out, stir a few times, let it set for as long as you want, chill or leave it in while chilling, depends on if you use a bag or just throw them in, Me I add the hops directly in the pot turn off the heat and whirlpool until the temp reaches 170ish, I put the lid on and chill and don't worry how much gets in the fermenter, I found it really doesn't matter unless your using a massive amount of hi ibu hops
 
Hmmm, seems that only sugar will not be the best option. Maybe do a 1L worth few days before brewing. Calculating to match your recipe and get the worth at 68 for one hour, extract the nutrients from the malt and get around 1030 of gravity. Cool down and pitch the yeast. Let it for 1-2 days, brew and pitch your yeast that supposed to be just healthy and good to go. Lot's of extra work, bu might worth it for the lack of the DME. Probably the DME it's cheaper.
What do you think guys?
 

Back
Top