In spite of myself

I’m going to be commuting to another state for work for the rest of the summer and wanted to jam in a few days of brewing before hand to get my somewhat depleted kegs refilled. So I ‘planned’ to brew Thurs, Fri and Sat of this past week. I use the term planned loosely because I forgot to build a starter for the first day of the 3. I brewed my slightly modified version of NB’s Irish Red Ale Thursday, The Number 8 on Friday and The Innkeeper on Saturday. So having gotten through my BIAB mash for the Red Ale I realized my problem and pulled a mason jar of harvested WL004 Irish Ale yeast out of the fridge decanted and decided approximately 200 ml of month old yeast would have to do. Finished up the brew day cooled down the wort and pitched it. Next day when preping for the Number 8 brew which would go right onto the yeast cake from a Patersbier I racked to keg, I popped the lid on the bucket of red ale and much to my aggravation found it totally flat and smelling of just cooked wort. So I dumped in another 200 ml of month old 004. The Number 8 brew day went smothly and a few hours after putting it on the yeast cake I was VERY glad I placed a blow off hose rather than an airlock. I remembered that I wanted to use harvested Wy1469 for my Innkeeper on Saturday so I made a 1000ml starter figuring I’d just pitch it next day at what would probably prove to be high krauesen for the starter. No worries…

Saturday morning I realized I was fresh out of fermenters so I ran to the LHBS and purchased a shiny new 6.5g carboy and picked up a few packs of Notty with the red ale in the back of my mind. Popped the lid when I got back and sure enough it was still flat…scattered some Notty on it and went on with my Inkeeper brew day. Later that night the Innkeeper was burbling away alongside the #8 and the red ale was finally starting to show some signs of life. Sunday the red ale had a good head of krauesen on it so I was satisfied it would be ok.

So this morning I decided to check in on the red ale again and when I popped the lid on the bucket the krauesen had dropped and there were just bubbles on the surface…I checked gravity and it’s 1.014? really…in just about 36 hours of fermenting? Didn’t taste half bad either…OK I’ll take it…

Appears I have once again made beer in spite of myself. :cheers:

Them sneaky little yeasty boys just seem to do what THEY want, not what we want.
All’s well that ends well…
Not that it matters, but I wonder if it was the 004 kicking in late, or the Notty?

I doubt the Notty was what fermented the wort out. Wasted a couple dollars on them.

Expecting 1 month old yeast to start fermenting in less than 48-72 hours is asking a lot.