# Wyeast 1214 Belgian Abbey - Underpitch



## stakka82 (13/2/13)

Hi,

On the weekend I brewed a belgian pale ale with Wy 1214 - one smack pack.

The OG was a bit low for style at 1045 but the plan was to use it as a 'starter beer' for an upcoming Belgian blond ale, so this was intentional, and I only brewed 9 litres. Mr Malty said I needed 3 packs due to the production date being mid November, but I wasn't overly concerned as really I'm just building a big starter and didnt mind if the BPA wasn't perfect.

When I smacked the pack it took aaaages to swell, and only half swelled after about 8 or so hours at which point i lost patience and pitched cause the wort was sitting there at pitch temperature for some time so I was getting paranoid about infection and it was getting late.

I pitched sunday night, and only noticed any activity at all (hints of krausen/positive pressure/air lock) last night, which makes it a full 48 hours - I knew I was underpitching, but to me this signifies a pretty serious under pitch.

Two questions:

1. Usually my sanitation is top notch, but with this beer i had an unsanitised airlock fall into the unpitched wort just prior to pitching. If I had a normal fast kick off to fermentation (6-12 hrs) I wouldn't be worried but in this case yeast numbers must have been VERY low in that first 48 hours and I'm worried something else might have got a hold in that time. I would just say c'est la vie but I want to pitch that belgian blonde onto the cake in a couple of weeks, and I dont want to risk 2 beers unnecessarily. Thoughts on risking it?

2. I'm also expecting some off flavours from such an underpitch. Assuming I drain most of the finished beer off the cake when kegging, and infection isnt an issue, is this likely to negatively affect the blonde ale?

Thanks in advance.


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## scottc1178 (13/2/13)

Hey mate,

I'm no expert but I seem to remember the time I used 1214 it had a long lag time (both in the smack pack and when it hit the wort), but everything ended up fine, I had 23l of very high gravity wort and I hit my FG nicely, and the beer was brilliant.
and if its only gone into 9l of low gravity wort, I would have thought you'd be pretty safe.
I'm guessing the slow kick off might just be a characteristic of that strain?
It also tends to give banana scent, but I think that is also just a characteristic of the strain, and not a sign of infection.

cheers.


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## Nick JD (13/2/13)

For "unclean" beers, the underpitch will at worst give you more of the flavours that yeast is noted for and possibly a higher FG - both of which are not really an issue in a 1.045 BPA.

1214 is probably _the_ yeast you can treat like a dirtbag and it'll still hang out your washing. Pretty sure the Monks have sanctified it or something.

Where you can't affort to underpitch is in clean beers, like lagers and APAs.


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## stakka82 (13/2/13)

Thanks for the replies. I was hoping it might be a slow strain to fire, that's good to hear.

Nick - Yeah I figured I might just have a bucket load of phenolics/esters for the BPA. 

Still stressing a little about the lag time and chance of infection though!


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## Rowy (13/2/13)

I used this one smack pack of this last week in a Wheat. 23litres of 1050. It was slow in the pack and slow to start but finished in 6 days and smells and tastes great. I'll keg it next week.


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## stakka82 (2/3/13)

Well, the pale ale came out great, surprisingly. It's the first BPA I've done, it has this rich malty/caramel taste with undertones of bubblegum and just a hint of pepperiness. No off flavours from the possible underpitch and it's cleaner than I thought it'd be too. 

I dont often rebrew the same beer but I think I'll do this one again. About to dump a belgian blond on the cake. Excited!

I'm now a big fan of 1214.

Here is the recipe for anyone that's interested:


Belgian Pale Ale

Recipe Specs
----------------
Batch Size (L): 10.0
Total Grain (kg): 1.900
Total Hops (g): 25.00
Original Gravity (OG): 1.045 (°P): 11.2
Final Gravity (FG): 1.011 (°P): 2.8
Alcohol by Volume (ABV): 4.42 %
Colour (SRM): 8.4 (EBC): 16.5
Bitterness (IBU): 27.1 (Average)
Brewhouse Efficiency (%): 76
Boil Time (Minutes): 75

Grain Bill
----------------
1.000 kg Pilsner (52.63%)
0.700 kg Munich I (36.84%)
0.100 kg Aromatic Malt (5.26%)
0.100 kg Caramunich II (5.26%)

Hop Bill
----------------
15.0 g East Kent Golding Pellet (5% Alpha) @ 60 Minutes (Boil) (1.5 g/L)
10.0 g East Kent Golding Pellet (5% Alpha) @ 15 Minutes (Boil) (1 g/L)

Misc Bill
----------------

Single step Infusion at 66°C for 60 Minutes.
Fermented at 20°C with Wy 1214


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## jimi (2/3/13)

Tomorrow I'll give 1214 my first run ever, a bit like you stakka I'm doing a light beer (hefe) before dropping a dubble on it.


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## Florian (3/3/13)

Stakka, I would have expected a good banana hit from that underpitch with 1214. Nothing there?


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## Scooby Tha Newbie (7/1/14)

Bumping this thread. Pitched a ginger beer with this yeast prolly under pitched. 0 activity in the pack just added it. Now it's going great guns. 2 questions

Fermentation temp? 

And I wish to bottle it so I want it to completely ferment out. I've read many threads about this yeast. Do I need a high temp to finish it? 20-25c 
Starting gravity ;1080 
Any help would be appreciated.

It's sitting at 17.5c now I thought that was a safe temp. I had my temp mate set at 24c till I saw activity. then tired it down.


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