Hi folks. I’ve done enough home brewing that I no longer hover over the fermenter waiting for action to happen. But it’s now Wednesday night after a Sunday brew day and not a thing from my blond ale with Wyeast 1099. I didn’t use a starter but rarely do. Of course the damned internal bag never opened- I still can’t get that to work.
I’m at 68F and lower SG of 1042. Measuring by Tilt.
Can it be a slow starter?
Well. Damn. I think 1042 at 68F is easy pickens for healthy ale yeast. I would be considering pitching a backup.
Did you verify with a hydrometer?
My last batch (Batch #197) had just a very few bubbles and pretty much no kraeusen. That’s the first time ever for me. I checked the gravity the other day and it had attenuated 82%. So I would check gravity before panicking.
I love 1099 but I digress.
I also pitch ale yeast without a starter especially for a lower gravity beer but I would NOT do that if it was a White Labs yeast or Omega yeast where there was no nutrient pack. When I smack a pack of Wyeast ale yeast and it expands I know it’s ready for action and I usually get activity quickly. But I had a pack of Omega West Coast ale (no nutrient pack with Omega) and I just pitched it. There was a good 3-4 day lag time and I was not happy. I would swirl the fermenter and try to rouse it and hope you get activity shortly.
I recently had a problem with a pack of Wyeast 2565 Kolsch. It had a November use by date. The pack did not swell after I broke the nutrient pouch (my first clue) and then the starter did not take off at all. I bought another pack at a different LHBS and it worked just like it’s supposed to work. Sometimes it’s just a bad pack. I got a survey request e-mail from Northern Brewer asking about my experience and I told them it was a flop. I received a nice return note in which they apologized and said that someone would contact me - but, guess what? That never happened. So I had a delayed brew day and I’m out nine bucks. A little disappointed, I am.
I know it doesn’t help but this is a good reason to look around and find good, dry yeast both ale strains and lager. S-04 might become my go-to dry ale yeast and between 34/70, Diamond, S-23 and maybe this Cellar Science Baja (which I have not tried yet) there may be enough strains to make it liquid yeast and starters start to drop in popularity. Yes, the dry yeasts have expiration dates but they’re further out and these yeasts make delicious beer.
Agree 100% I switched back to using dry yeasts almost exclusively several years ago and haven’t had any of the problems that I’d experienced with liquid strains. I’m confident that liquid yeast quality is just fine when it ships from the producer but there’s no telling what conditions it was subject to before you received it. This is especially true if it was shipped during the hotter months.
Not knowing where the OP is from or how he came about his package of 1099, I think to myself that he must have purchased it in the middle of Summer. Maybe the yeast was very fresh, expertly handled, and kept at an appropriate temp in a well-run LHBS. But, given the problem, I’ll guess not.
I really like a lot of liquid yeast strains, but living in PA and without a LHBS, I have about a 3-4 month window to order them on-line and expect them to remain cold and viable in transit. I envy those with a nearby shop.
Yes, this. Pretty much my thoughts, sorry I missed your post.
There are a few strains I like that I feel like I can only get in liquid form (Omega Bayern coms to mind) but otherwise my need for American Ales (BRY-97), English Ales (S-04), German Lagers (Diamond, 34/70) and Mexican Lagers (possibly this Cellar Science Baja) are all pretty much covered. When I started brewing dry yeasts were common but some of them were not great. Everyone was talking about how liquid yeast was the only way to go. That has changed, IMO and more strains will become available I’m sure. I doubt liquid strains would disappear but just based on my good results, I’m ready to embrace dry in many situations.
It’s interesting how long old views linger in homebrewing circles. I remember when I started brewing in the late 2000s the attitude about the superiority of liquid yeast was prominent, but when you see people talking about their individual experience it is almost never bad. Usually it was because they shoehorned WB-06 or T-58 into a recipe expecting something entirely different. The only consistent criticism I see out there now surrounds Mangrove Jack and low viability or whatever their issue is. Across the board the real benefit of liquid yeast over dried yeast is the broader availability of strains.
That’s definitely true. Think of ALL the English strains, Belgian strains, wide variety of Czech or German lager strains, etc. I used to like to experiment with different yeasts to see what each one did. I do less of that now. I can survive on a handful of strains and some of those have migrated over to dry yeast now. Will we see all those liquid options come to the world of dry yeast sometime? I doubt it.
I’ve used Mangrove Jack yeasts for 95+% of my brews for several years and have had one problem ferment. It was lower than expected attenuation in an extract brew. Can’t pin it down to the yeast. Never a problem with the 150+all-grain ferments. Have you personally had problems with Mangrove Jack yeasts? I think most of the bad things you see are more from poor brewing knowledge or process than the yeast. There are a lot more people to disagree if you bad mouth more popular brands, so MJ is an easy target.
I’ve never used any of their strains so I have no personal experience either way. I just see a stream of complaints about sluggish fermentation since they showed up on the market. I see less about saflager or lallemand which are both more established yeast labs. Mangrove Jack seems to be sold in fewer shops these days so whether the criticism is fair, it’s certainly not going unnoticed.
I have also seen many people criticize MJ’s for starting slow for some reason. I bought some M76 and then saw so many stories about how one could pitch TWO packs of it and still wait days for fermentation to start. I never used the M76. That may not be fair but I try very hard not to gamble with my beer or the time it takes me to make it.
+1. One of my pet peeves is a slow, sluggish fermentation. That’s why I don’t use the ‘pack a batch’ pitching method. I use the mfr’s recommendation and calculate the pitch rate based on temp, OG, and volume but if even that would produce a slow start or sluggish ferment I would not use the product again.
I don’t worry about the onset of fermentation until it gets to 72 hours. My experience has benefits it just doesn’t matter…at least to me. Beer turns out the same whether a slow start or fast start.
Surprisingly enough, I have found that the beer from a sluggish start to fermentation will often finish just as quickly as a fast starter that tails off at the end of fermentation…just anecdotal comparing Tilt information.
IIRC, there were a boat load of complaints of long lag times with BRY-97 a year or 2 ago. I used it a few times and never had that problem. Maybe I just live a charmed life:) Like Denny, I don’t worry about slow starts. It’s the finished product that counts. As long as I’ve got suppliers for MJ. it will remain my go-to brand.