Too Much Yeast?

Northern Brewer General
1

I have started making yeast starters for all of my beers regardless of OG. Can you ever have too much yeast? I sometimes go over the recommended size in BeerSmith. Just wondering if it makes a difference or not.
Thanks

2

IME, no, but if you pitch lots of yeast into warm wort, you can get a very vigorous fermentation that generates even more heat, which will likely lead to off flavors.

3

Haven’t made any starters yet, but I started pitching two smack packs worth of yeast about six or seven batches ago. I think it’s actually improved the quality of my beer. Since doing that, however, I’ve had to start cold-crashing the beer, usually for a week, to get all the yeast to settle out. Never had any troubles with off-flavors though.

4

[quote=“isoscelesjones”]Haven’t made any starters yet, but I started pitching two smack packs worth of yeast about six or seven batches ago. I think it’s actually improved the quality of my beer.[/quote]As you would expect (the improvement) - you’re pitching an appropriate, or at least closer to appropriate, amount of yeast (if you aren’t making starters with liquid yeast for anything over 1.040 you’re not pitching enough). “Too much yeast” to me means an entire yeast cake or maybe 6+ smack packs in an average OG beer.

5

Check out Mr. Malty, he’s your friend.
http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html

This will give you a good idea of how much yeast you should pitch, considering the gravity of your beer and the age of the yeast.

6

I’ve been thinking about this and am rather green in my knowledge of yeast but if it is a strain that imparts a lot of flavor which is critical to the style of the beer wouldn’t you get less of those flavors by overpitching? I’m thinking that if you overpitch their will be less cell reproduction once in the wort which is when a lot of the yeast flavors come from. Is my understanding correct here or am I reaching? I could be way off…

7

You can theoretically get less esters from overpitching but I haven’t noticed much difference. I would rather use a little more yeast than not enough.

8

You have to make a real effort to overpitch.