# Did I overpitch?



## Moad (25/5/15)

I made an ESB two weeks ago (60 Litre batch) , pitched 45L of 1.050 brown ale on to the cake.

It has fermented down to ~1.018 in 2 days and tastes a little bland. It was a pretty big late hop (100g) and seems to have lost a lot of that flavour/aroma from the late hop, possibly from a vigerous fermentation.

Obviously it will change with remaining fermentation and then carbonation but I am wondering if 3 Litres of slurry was too much for this one?

I will be pitching a porter on to this cake if everything goes OK and there are no off flavours, should I be dropping some out prior to throwing the porter on top?


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## Yob (25/5/15)

Why would you repeat that if you found it was bland? 

Massive over pitch.

1 cup - ale

2 cups - lager 

Regular ferment = ~2liters 

Esters develop through budding stage, over pitch = little to no budding


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## manticle (25/5/15)

Yep. Why repeat the error? Pitching on whole cake is about the only way hb can be overpitched.


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## Moad (25/5/15)

Yob said:


> Why would you repeat that if you found it was bland?





manticle said:


> Yep. Why repeat the error? Pitching on whole cake is about the only way hb can be overpitched.



Hence why I asked the question before doing it...

Is that 1 cup for 20 litres of ale?

So should I be getting a fresh pack and building it up again rather than collecting 3 cups of this cake?

edit: thankyou for the replies, I think it might be safest to grab a fresh smackpack


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## Yob (25/5/15)

You have plenty of yeast, you just don't need all of it for a single batch


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## Danscraftbeer (25/5/15)

Yeast calculations are improtant me thinks (as a fairly new recycler of yeast).
I boil and cool water to wash the slurry. Keeping temps all equall as possible.
Mix up the slurry with wash water in the fermenter and let sit for ~ 20 minutes?
This lets the heaviest darkest trub/sediment to sink first then drain the milky top slurry into snitised vessels. (jars or bottles).
Refridgerate. You can then calculate the level of nice thick creamy white sediment with Mr Malty. http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html


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## Danscraftbeer (25/5/15)

Yeast cakes could be as far as 8 times as much as whats is needed, or what is best.
Plus I cant consider putting fresh new wort into dirty old Krausen dregs and goobies and dead bottom crap.
Thats just me.

Also means when you recycle yeast carefully you can harvest enough for 4 more brews, give or take LOTS in that calculation. The last time I recycled its enough for at least 6 brews of the same quantity. And its maybe only 2/3 of the washed slurry but the best of it (I hope/I think)
The best ever beers I have made was recycled yeast. That's in my notes worthy of me paying attention to anyway..
$0.02


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## Moad (25/5/15)

I've washed yeast before, I just didn't have time to wash and was advised I could dump on a yeast cake from a knowledgable brewer in the past. Not sure why I didn't read up more on it as everything brewing I normally read and read again.

I'll collect some of this cake and wash it as I normally would, I thought perhaps this yeast would be "lazy" and the nature of it would have changed which is why I suggested a fresh pack.

Thanks for replies, lesson learned. It will still be drinkable just not ideal...


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## Kingy (25/5/15)

The 2 times ive dumped on yeast cakes from being lazy ive came home the next arvo to find my glad wrap blown off the fermenter and krausen spilling out the fridge door. Think they finished fermenting in 2 or 3 days to. Wont ever do that again.
These days i relise cleaning is a big part of brewing and if not done properly the shortcuts taken to subsidise are not beneficial. Much prefer fresh yeast and a clean fermenter for a fresh brew/beer.


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## Danscraftbeer (25/5/15)

Or recycle in different size bottles and pick the one closest to the correct amount.
Pop the top of a bottle of yeast, pour off 80% of the clear top water and swill and spill. Into the fermenter at equall temperatures etc.
I'm getting on to this recycled yeast thing. Its a really cool part of brewing actually. Less work than making starters anyway.
Seems this way I only need that home made stir plate when I start with fresh yeast. B)


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## Rocker1986 (25/5/15)

I've pitched fresh wort onto the previous yeast cake a couple of times with no ill effects, but I too prefer fresh yeast and a clean fermenter for each new batch. These days I overbuild my yeast starters and steal some of them to store for re-use later, before the rest of it crashed, decanted and pitched into the actual batch. It's a lot less faffing about than rinsing yeast, in my case anyway as I only ferment about one batch per month so I pretty well always make a starter for them.


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## panzerd18 (26/5/15)

Better to over pitch than to under pitch?


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## Yob (26/5/15)

Better to pitch the correct amount


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## mckenry (26/5/15)

Just thought I'd clear up what appears to be some misunderstandings above.

Pitching onto a previous yeast cake does not mean putting fresh wort into the same dirty fermenter the previous batch came from.

There are some givens;
You have collected 1 (or whatever you require for the next batch) cup of slurry.
You have put that cup of yeast slurry into a sanitary fermenter, then pitched fresh wort onto it.

What it essentially means is;
You may or may not have rinsed the yeast.
You have not made a starter.
The yeast has not been stored between brews.


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## Moad (26/5/15)

Thanks guys,

I collected the yeast a couple of days before, didn't wash and then pitched ~80% of it back into a clean fermenter with fresh wort.

I've tried to wash 1968 and it is seemingly impossible without something to draw it from under the trub, the yeast settles before the crap on top.

I think I'll be fine with this one but will pay more attention in the future


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## Rocker1986 (26/5/15)

mckenry said:


> Pitching onto a previous yeast cake does not mean putting fresh wort into the same dirty fermenter the previous batch came from.


That's exactly how I did it. Not trying to say it's best practice, or even particularly good practice really, but it is what I did. I only did it once or twice though, then decided I preferred having a clean FV and clean yeast for each new batch.


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## Vini2ton (26/5/15)

Yeast farming can become a hobby all of its own. I washed and stored and all that stuff but got sick of all those fn jars. Now all I do is 1 cup yeast cake into 1 ltr 1.040 to give it a run for 2 days " in the paddock" and then pitch on brew-day. I'm probably over pitching but the beers are flavoursome so WTF. I have 2 fermenters running in winter and don't want to be a slave to yeast.


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## ebyelyakov (27/5/15)

1 ml of slurry will have somewhere between 1 to 3.5B of cells... I settled on 2B per ml after some observation/analysis of my system.
You need 750K cells per 1 ml per degree of Plato (150 billion cells for 20L of 1.04 OG) or twice of that for lagers. I believe for pro-brewers (and high gravity >1.09) you can go twice as high.

Some sources state extreme overpitching is >100M cells per ml

Underpitching is good sometimes e.g. when increased production of esters is required - hefeweizen as an example.


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## Moad (4/6/15)

So this one turned out fine, if anything there are too many esters from the ESB overpowering the darker malts


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