Pitching A Smack Pack Into A 1080 Wort

[Oatlands Brewer]

Just a quick question guys

How would i go with pitching a Wyeast smack pack into my IIPA wort which will be at 1080.

Im planning on doing the brew tomorrow afternoon and dont really have the time to brew up a starter.

Will it be ok

 

[marksfish]

a smack pack is supposed to be pitched to a 19 litre batch at 1050 or so, i think without making a starter you will stress the yeast throwing some strong ester flavors.

 

[Sammus]

I wouldn't do it. I'd either do something smaller to use to build up the yeast, then use the slurry in 4 or 5 other batches, or delay the brew and make a starter


If the pack is smacked and swollen, you could make a starter now and it would have reached peak cell count/high krausen tomorrow arvo, just in time to pitch...

 

[Oatlands Brewer]

im thinking the same thing but i dont have any thing steralized or ready to go...i do a dme and the smack pack, which i think was smacked in the post. It arrived from Ross today

 

[Bandito]

It will take a very long time to start. Tomorrow arvo, take some wort and dilute it to much less than 1.080 and let it reach krausen overnight at ferment temps, then pitch it on sunday morning. I am still learning what a starter actually is (seems to be quite some misconceptions in my camp at least), so I know nothing more than that it will take a very long time to start.

 

[geoff_tewierik]

According to the Wyeast website, the Activator smack packs are good for 5 gallons of wort (up to 1060 SG).

http://www.wyeastlab.com/hb_productdetail.cfm?ProductID=16

 

[bulp]

What you could do is pitch your one pack of wyeast into half of the wort, which would get you closer to correct pitching rates, keep the other half of the wort refrigerated and once the beer is at high krausen after 24hrs feed it the remainder of the wort and bob's your auntie plenty of yeast for all, i'd rather do that than under pitch by that much.

Good luck

 

[Sammus]

if you got it today and smacked it, it should swell soon. mix up 200g dme and 2L water, boil it for a bit, chuck it in whatever will hold it thats been sanitized, let it cool, pour pack in, pitch tomorrow, no wukkas. As long as it swells

 

[marksfish]

if you are an extract brewer make up a 2 litre starter as soon as you can and pitch when the starter is at high krausen, you can make the starter in anything that will hold it.

 

[Bandito]

It will take a very long time to start. Tomorrow arvo, take some wort and dilute it to much less than 1.080 and let it reach krausen overnight at ferment temps, then pitch it on sunday morning. I am still learning what a starter actually is (seems to be quite some misconceptions in my camp at least), so I know nothing more than that it will take a very long time to start.

I wonder if there is an sg limit that a plain high krausen starter is usable for? perhaps this sg is high enough to require a slurry pitched into a normal sg wort and then pitched at high krausen? 1.080 is damn heavy!

Are you willing to reduce your OG by adding a massive starter?

If you do what you asked, I would expect about 7 days for it to start (if its a lager)

Do you have another brew almost ready for secondary whose slurry you can pitch onto? This is what I would do for that OG.

 

[DUANNE]

do you have a stirplate? if you have id get a starter going now and you should be right by tomorow arvo. if not then ill go against the trend and say pitch when your ready, it will be more estery and take a bit longer to really get going but its a good way to learn what can happen with different pitchig rates. being a double ipa the hops will cover a lot of fuckups,but on the flipside it may under attenuate.

 

[Oatlands Brewer]

Thanks guys

Have been tearing the kitchen aprt looking for some thing to do a starter....only found a half empty 2.5 lt juice container in the fridge.

The onlt sanitizer ive got is sodium met which takes to long to get up and running tonight.....

BIt of a **** up all round really.

Anyway i think ill just do it proper tomorrow and do the brew on sunday...just have to chuck the shooting in on sunday.

 

[Oatlands Brewer]

unfortunalty dont have another brew on the go mate. though i do like the idea of making a starter from the wort and pitching on sunday morning...how long do you rekon can a wort be left for in fridge without yeast

 

[marksfish]

yeah good move, what do you shoot with you blood thirsty murdering high powered killer :lol:

 

[praxis178]

unfortunalty dont have another brew on the go mate. though i do like the idea of making a starter from the wort and pitching on sunday morning...how long do you rekon can a wort be left for in fridge without yeast

Couple of days easily if you can get it to fridge temp reasonably quickly and in a sealed vessel. If you no chill then refrigerate weeks would be my guess.

In any case more than long enough to either build a proper starter or go the split batch route.

 

[Bandito]

So you dont have another brew already on the go, but how are you making this wort? You cant be taking much of the lauterings at all. So here is my proposition: Collect the second half of the lauterings and make that into a mid strength brew, pitch the yeast or starter into that and let it ferment for a week. No chill the first runnings and first concentrated lauterings. then next weekend, rack the mid strength into secondary, and pitch the 1.080 wort onto the yeast cake.

It's an idea.

Hell, I did a 1.050 brew last monday, boil finnished about 11pm, and was way too late to do anything, so I wrapped the kettle with lid on up with glad wrap and then the next night I bought it back to boil and nochilled it, left it in the bath overnight, then put it in the fridge. On the friday of that weekend I started a starter, fermented it until sunday, but time got away from me, and it is still in the fridge and still havent pitched as yet! So, time is a relative thing. Wort will keep in the fridge for quite a while especially if you nochill (not sure what the proper procedures are for nochill (no expert), but I just fill a clean and preferably sanitised (though not always) fermenter with very hot wort (I use light blue 20L jerry cans from bunnings). Again I'm no expert, just a hack. I wouldnt reccomend my procedures, but the ideas could be useful.

I did do a high gravity brew a while ago known as 'leftovers brew, everythings going in' and I pitched a single packet of s-23 from memory. It took 5 days to start, and didnt have the expected attenuation. What I learnt from that is that one needs massive amounts of yeast to ferment a high gravity brew, and I suspect that can only be attained by pitching onto a yeast cake or large slurry, otherwise, the starter would be so large that it ends up diluting the OG.

 

[Scruffy]

I made a 1.080 (I'm always making them...). Nonchalantly pitched a pack of 1882, took a while to start (48 hours - then really didn't seem like doing much), stopped dead at 1.033. Tasting fantastic though - no esters (it's sat in the fridge at 18C). Nothing I tried would get the yeast restarted, so hydrated a packet of Nottingham and chucked that in...
It's chugging away nicely.
So the moral is, 19l of 1.080 is probably a bit much for a single smack pack - half fill a jug/kettle/bowl/pint glass (just make sure it's sterile) with your wort, top up with water leaving enough room for the contents of the pack and the resulting foam, aim for above 20C. Then bung in the fermenter (when the temps are similar - try not to shock the yeast).

What yeast are you using? You might get away with it you know...

 

[Bandito]

I assumed we were talking about a lager since the fridge was mentioned.

 

[Cocko]

Pitch it.

It will be fine.

 

[Scruffy]

Yup, most of mine make it...

Then again, I have no clue about Lagers - they're all IPA's.