You made beer. Congratulations! It is fine. Leave it alone for 2 or 3 weeks, then bottle.
You overpitched by quite a bit. Next time check out yeastcalc.com (better for calculations w/ starters) or mrmalty.com.
Dry yeast does not require a starter and I’ve heard you actually shouldn’t do one (not sure why). But one of those packets (I’m guessing it was either Notty or S-04) contains enough cells to pitch directly into a 5gal beer up to around 1.070.
You probably pitched enough yeast cells to chew through a 1.090-1.1 beer, so your yeast nuked through a 1.038 session beer real quick I’d guess.
Regardless, you have made beer. It will be decent, but one of the problems with overpitching (particularly in a style like Irish Red, where you want some ester/yeast-derived flavor/character) is that the yeast don’t grow at all in the solution, they just eat. Also, if you just had it @ ambient temp of 66 degrees, the fermenter (and beer inside it) like got into the low 70’s, especially given the amount of activity you are describing, so it might have a touch of fusel alcohol.
I would leave it in the primary for another 10 days, crash cool if you can, then bottle.
You could harvest some yeast off the bottom, wash it, and do another starter at some point in the future though if you want to use your kit.
It’s totally possible it’s done, that’s a lot of yeast for a low gravity kit. I would just let it ride in the primary for a few weeks or until it appears to clear up. You be able to see the difference as the yeast drops out. You can bottle after that.
Did you boil the DME for the yeast starter? You didn’t mention that, so I thought I’d ask. For a yeast starter you boil the DME for 15 minutes, cool it, pitch the yeast, and then I typically give it a day to ferment, maybe more if I didn’t have a stir plate.
Thanks for the replies, I did boil the DME and cooled before pitching, but thought it looked similar to the action I saw in several videos which is why I cooled it when I did. Now I’m thinking it could probably be due to the dry yeast vs wyeast I saw most use. Sounds like ill just have to wait for it to clear up and bottle. The suggestions are much appreciated guys thanks.
