I am trying to brew my first Dry Stout and think I may have not done something correctly. Granted this is only my fourth brew, but the others turned out fine.
In anycase, this was the first time I used a dry yeast for the brew. I thought I activated it properly, brought 4oz of water to 95*F then let it cool down before adding the yeast, then stirred it to a even consistency before pitching it into the wort. I let it sit in the primary fermentor for about 3 days and when I did my gravity reading, it hadn’t changed from when I first put it in there. Could I have prepped the yeast improperly and is there a way to save the brew? Is it a bad idea to add another batch of yeast to the brew this late in the stage? I just moved it to the secondary fermentor to see if it might reactivate the yeast and help the fermentation along.
I assume that you didn’t see any fermentation activity. If you still have the empty yeast packet check the date (it does expire). Sounds like you rehydrated it properly. How was the yeast stored (extreme heat/cold is not good)?
I would try to swirl the fermenter a bit to get the yeast back into suspension (maybe raise the temp to around 70 F if possible) and if nothing happens go ahead and pitch another yeast packet. If you sanitation was good you may still come out alright. I had this happen about a year ago with a cream ale- for whatever reason the yeast didn’t start and I pitched another packet. To be honest it didn’t quite taste right (3-4 day lag) but it wasn’t awful either.
If you’ve already gone 3 days with no change in gravity, pitch new yeast. The other pack wasn’t viable for whatever reason. Hopefully your sanitation was good and nothing else took hold.
If you don’t have any sign of.fermentation pitch another pack of yeast asap. Fwiw you don’t haven to rehydrate. Pitching dry yields the same results for me.
With dehydration you sprinkle it into plain water and let it sit for ten minutes. Then you stir. Let sit for another five minutes. Swirl and pitch into wort.
I preboil the water in the micro and let cool to 75-80 before the yeast comes into contact.
Hard to say why your pitch failed. It’s very unusual. However, you’ll see excellent results if you rehydrate properly. I fall into the Rehydrate camp.
I stopped by the brew shop today to pick up some more yeast. My original was the Nottingham Irish Ale dry yeast. This time the guy suggested to try a liquid yeast so I got the White Labs Irish Ale yeast. My starting gravity has been at 1.052 from when I pitched the yeast to now. I’m hoping it works this time.
I’m also wondering if I need to raise the temperature of my room where I keep the brew. I keep it in m y basement and I checked today and it looks like it is staying at a constant 50*F. At least it is constant.
I wonder if my water was too hot when I was re-hydrating the yeast. Just because I have had success with it I am currently a fan of the White Labs or WYeast liquid yeast. Probably have a bit to learn about properly using the dry yeast. Maybe I’ll try pitching it dry next time just to see what happens.
Hmmm…That might be the problem. The yeast are not dead, just hibernating. Ale yeast usually like it better in the low to mid 60 range although some ferment in the mid 50’s OK. Try warming it up 10 degrees.
BTW…a vial of liquid yeast usually requires a starter. If you’re not going to make a starter you are better off pitching a pack of dry.
While 50 degrees isn’t unheard of for ale fermentation you should try to get the beer into the 60’s for a better more vigorous fermentation. That might be your problem right there.
Denny I don’t know. You have success with sprinkling and I did as well. Just that after listening to JZ&JP years ago I started practicing rehydration and noticed an immediate improvement in lag time especially and also with the attenuative phase. The first 1.100 barley wine got one pack of s-05 and despite a 36 hour lag it finished by the end of the week. Tasted ok too…
Go right ahead. If I ever have problem from not hydrating, I’ll join ya! OTOH, on another forum, I just answered a question from a guy who killed his dry yeast by improperly rehydrating it. Dan Listermann had so many of his customers doing that, too, that he finally told them to stop rehydrating and stopped getting problem calls.
The instructions have gotten better in the past few years. The key for me was using regular tap water and following the instructions as written. You know how we homebrewers are… Distilled or RO water gave me real problems and it took me a while to snap to it.
Well, whether it was the yeast or the temperature it is fermenting now. I guess this is the first time that my basement got too cold, I raised the temperature and it is now doing it’s thing so I now wonder if I am going to have to wait longer because I have more yeast in the brew…that is if the first batch just needed to be warmed up a bit.
Not to thread hijack, but what was the problem with using RO water for rehydrating your yeast? I’ve only done 1 batch with dry yeast so far, but I used microwaved & cooled RO water and everything seems to have turned out fine. Am I better off using tap water in the future?
The harder the water the better. It slows the absorption through the cell wall and in return the yeast cell doesn’t leak important components. Simply put. Others could explain better…
That Irish ale yeast is best between 60 and 68 degrees. You more or less put it back into storage at 50 degrees. I use it quite extensively in my porters and stouts and it is quite a good yeast. Just bring up the temp and it should take right off… Put in a closet or something upstairs . If your using a glass carboy and don’t have a dark room to put it in just cover the bottle with a shirt or blanket to keep it dark. Light and yeast don’t get along very well. ;D
It seems like there is a disconnect between the idea that a proper sized starter is important to brewing quality beer and the one that says it doesn’t matter if you kill about half the yeast by not rehydrating.
