I am new to the forum but have a situation that I thought someone on here would have have an answer to.
Yesterday was an all day brew day starting with a partial mash oatmeal stout followed by a partial mash Chimay Blue clone recipe I modified a bit from something I found online. I was planning on using Wyeast 1335 British Ale II yeast for the oatmeal stout and Wyeast 3787 trappist high gravity yeast for the Chimay clone. I smacked both packs in the morning and set them aside while preparing the stout first. When it came time to pitch the yeast for the oatmeal stout I must of had one to many home brews myself as I grabbed the Trappist yeast, sanitized the pack and pitched it in the stout. As soon as I finished pitching it I noticed my mistake. My first thought was that was a stupid mistake but then I thought a trappist style oatmeal stout might not be to bad. My biggest concern with the situation is that I had to use the British ale yeast for the Chimay clone as I already had the grains going in the mash and couldn’t stop the process. I added yeast builder to the Chimay wort but did not do a yeast starter before pitching the British Ale yeast. I have a OG of 1.080 and am wondering if the British Ale yeast will be enough for the high gravity beer? I am also concerned with the loss of flavor from not using the trappist yeast in the Chimay clone so was wondering if I can add a pack of trappist yeast to the brew even though I already added the British ale yeast.
Any insight would be greatly appreciated on this one.
Actually, neither yeast without a starter would have been enough for a 1.080. IMO, every beer over 1.040 needs a starter.
At this point, I’d leave them both alone and see what happens.
Thanks Denny, I think I will do just that. 18 hours after pitching the yeast in the oatmeal stout and it was bubbling good. The Chimay clone was just starting to bubble 15 hours after pitching. I will keep an eye on it.
I had two brews going at the same time, once. I say once because never again. I mixed up the yeasts. Not to bad of outcome after bottle conditioning was complete. After two beers the third one didn’t taste that bad.
I’m good about putting some type of marker or label on things when I’m working on a couple of batches. When I get all-grain kits from NB for instance, I generally make 10 gallon batches, which is 2 kits. I put all of the hops packs in one ziplock bag, and make sure one of the instruction sheets is in it, with the name of the kit showing. When I start a yeast starter, I’ll take a small piece of tape or post-it note and write the type of yeast, and sometimes what it is going into next. Labeling makes it sooooo much easier to keep track of what I’m doing and reduces the mistakes. The worst mistake I’ve made in the last couple of years was to mix up my hops additions, I put the 5-minute addition in at 30-minutes, and the 30-minute in at 5-minutes. That wasn’t a labeling problem, just a brainfart.
