Will one package of S 05 handle a 1.082 beer or should I double pitch?
If you properly rehydrate it, you should get close to 90% viability. You need about 300b cells, 1 pack of dry yeast would give you about 210b. If you don’t properly rehydrate, you’ll lose about half of them. so maybe rehydrate one and dry pitch another pack?
1 1/2 would probably be proper pitch rate, I would use 2. One is not sufficient.
Just pitching one pack would be about 0.5m/ml/*P, which is the low end of pitching rates. You could probably get away with pitching just one pack, but if you have two I’d use two.
Assuming we’re talking about a 5 gallon batch, I’d use two also. If you only have one, you can pitch it into a portion of the wort and let it go for a day or two, then add it to the rest. Or you can just pitch it and not worry about it - it’s not ideal, but it will work.
Thankyou for your responses. With as much time and grain as I have invested in this beer I decided to pitch both packages. I can always get some more yeast before doing the brew the second one was intended for. I was afraid underpitching would give less than a favorable flavor.
Good move. I think you’ll be glad you did it
I think you made the right choice.
Ah, but the question remains - did you rehydrate?
You will have plenty of yeast slurry from this beer that you can wash, put up, and use for several more beers.
Not recommended for such a high gravity beer, the yeast will be stressed.
For what it’s worth, Mr. Malty says 1.4 packs. I hope you have a blow-off tube attached if you pitched 2 packets! You’ll be fine, but that beer will be percolating away!
I also agree that you would only want to reuse this slurry in a bigger beer…
Dave
The thought that prevails is that you shouldn’t reuse yeast from a high gravity brew without making a starter with it. Reusing it in another high gravity beer would not solve the “stressed” issue. In my reality I go with a smaller beer after a bigger beer all the time, but I will pitch more from the slurry to cover the concern. The key for me is to just limit the generations of reuse to around 5. I am not anal enough in my methods to feel comfortable beyond that, though others do it routinely.
This beer finished at 1.016. After just 2 weeks in the bottle it tasted very close to Breckenridge Christmas Ale in spite of the extra alcohol. But it has a really nice “creamy” mouthfeel. Thank-you all for your responses.