Brewed a Pale Ale this weekend and I finished the boil with some local (Whole and dried) nuggets. Pitched yeast (Wyeast 1272, American ale 2) then poured (70 degree) wort on it (no spinning). We are at about 72 hours and it’s kind of bubbling but no Krausen at all. I have never had a beer not need to use a blow off (let alone not have any Krausen). Did we mess something up here? Do whole hops floating like that (photo below) affect Krausen? Also, please forgive my spelling of Krausen… I have no idea if that’s right…
How much yeast did you pitch? What’s the temperature been since pitching? Have you checked the gravity?
Pitched the whole smack pack of 1272 (sorry dont know how much that is). Temp has been very Consistent in its heated water bath ( at about 65-70). I have not checked the gravity (will tonight). I know that’s the best way to see what happened but I thought it best to not mess with it (unless I had too) and just ask all of you what the heck is going on.
Having never had whole hops floating in the fermenter like that, I don’t know if they would affect the krausen, but it doesn’t seem like they should. If this is a high-gravity wort with no aeration and only a smackpack of yeast (no starter), it’s likely that it’s just starting off really slowly. If you check the gravity and not much has happened, you might want to pitch a pack of US-05 to get things going.
can you “re-pitch” like that? Can i just throw another patch of yeast in there? Is thier a bad side to doing that?
You can just throw more yeast in. It’s pretty common, actually. We homebrewers aren’t known for our patience.
With the hops floating on top, I would re-hydrate the US-05 (boil water, then cool to 90-100F, sprinkle the yeast on top, wait 15 minutes, then stir with a sanitized spoon) and just pour it in. If you’d rather sprinkle it in dry, be sure to swirl the carboy so the yeast caught on the hops is submerged.
Once you figure out sanitation and the brewing process, I think patience is the most important step in producing consistently high-quality beer.
So i should “swirl”? Can i just get anouther smake pack? whats is US-O5?
[quote=“The Bundling”]So i should “swirl”? Can i just get anouther smake pack? whats is US-O5?[/quote]US-05 is a high-quality dry yeast known for it’s attenuation and clean character - pitching one packet of rehydrated US-05 will add a LOT of healthy yeast ready to reproduce and start attacking the sugar. Adding another pack of liquid yeast is an option, but it won’t boost the yeast count nearly as much and the yeast will need oxygen to reproduce, so for best results you would make a large starter, aerate, pitch the smack pack, and then at high krausen add the entire starter to the beer. You can see that using US-05 is a lot faster and easier and it’ll get yeast into the beer immediately.
Gently swirling the carboy will make the hops submerge and get the dry yeast into the beer (if you choose not to rehydrate it first).
S-05 = US 05 = US 56 = Safale 05
It’s not called US 56 anymore since that sounds too much like Wyeast 1056, which is the liquid yeast for which this is often substituted (although it’s generally believed to be a different, although similar, strain)
just took a reading and I’m sitting at 1.035… not low… I’m going to throw some more yeast in and gently swirl. thanks!
