Safale: S-04, strikes again!

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Nope, won't hurt.

I've left a Saison on the yeast for over 3 months (not that I'm advising it as best practice). Because I'm anal about sanitising (and probably a slab of luck), I bottled it last week without any infection issues.

A couple of days won't hurt.
 
Thought as much, the gladwrap is sealed with the rubber ring and I haven't opened it at all so it's full of CO2.

in the meantime I'll give 'er the old swirl in the morning's and nights and see if it helps over a few days.
 
You can also sing to it, probably won't do anything. But you will feel all the better :beer:
 
You've not mentioned (that i can see) what temperature you mashed the grains at? That said, looking at the malt bill & the yeast used, 1042 doesn't surprise me at all.
Not sure why you think Nottingham or US-05 will give you too dry a beer, they are both a much better choice than SO-4 for the attenuation you are seeking & there's no way either are going to make an all malt 1.100 beer too dry. Depending on mash temps, you might struggle to get much lower anyway, but I'd try making a small starter with some Nott or US-05, warm the brew up to 23c & pitch the active starter into it.


Cheers Ross
 
I considered the amount of malt I was using and mashed at 64.

Never considered throwing in a different type of yeast, are there any adverse affects to doing this?
 
I left the door on my fridge slightly ajar for a little and changed the controller temp to 23, by about 10pm it was well and truly there.

When I went to give it a light shake I found that it's bubbling again and has got positive pressure raising the glad wrap which was still there this morning.

Looks like the temp increase might have given it a kick up the ***.
 
An increase in temp will cause more dissolved gas to come out of solution, that may be what you are noticing.
I'm by no means an expert.
 
Sea_Eagle said:
An increase in temp will cause more dissolved gas to come out of solution, that may be what you are noticing.
I'm by no means an expert.
Yeah I thought of this, when I've raised temps before I haven't really noticed anything, especially when the temp's been raised for 12+ hours.

I'll see how things are looking this arvo.
 
damoninja said:
Lost 2 points ;/

US-05 this weekend it is!
in response to what you asked before, adding us-05 or a neutral yeast won't affect the flavour and esters as the bulk of ferment was done with the previous yeast. only thing i've ever had with adding us-05 to finish it off was a more subdued hop note to the beer. it was an english ipa.
 
Cheers fletcher - I've got some US-05 on hand but no malt for it to eat!
 
damoninja said:
Cheers fletcher - I've got some US-05 on hand but no malt for it to eat!
for a starter? do you have a popper/juice box? use that, it's about 1.040ish

EDIT: with no preservs, added sugar and **** obviously :)

grab one cheap and use that instead. works a treat. chill and decant when done and then pitch slurry
 
fletcher said:
for a starter? do you have a popper/juice box? use that, it's about 1.040ish

EDIT: with no preservs, added sugar and **** obviously :)

grab one cheap and use that instead. works a treat. chill and decant when done and then pitch slurry
Nah mate, no juice on hand either... I've got is some apples I'm turning in to apple cider vinegar, somehow I don't think I want this in my beer :blink:
 
late night 7-11 run? haha

all good mate, just trying to brainstorm for ya :) someone on here once gave me that great tip. it's perfect for starters - obviously you wouldn't want the juice in the beer but for a later-decanted and pitched starter..perfect!
 
I'll certainly keep it in mind, I've been working all evening else might have ducked out to the IGA...

I'll be out and about tomorrow night might get a chance to get things going but I'll have other stuff being delivered on Friday anyways so I'll have plenty of malty goodness if I don't get to it tomorrow.
 
Thought I'd re-activate this thread than start another one.


I've just started drinking a batch in which I used S-04 for the first time and I'm finding that the batch is completely lacking in hop bitterness and flavour.

It's meant to have 51 IBUs, but it would be lucky to have 1.

During ferment it went off like a bomb, very vigorous with krausen leaking out from under the glad wrap. Once fermentation had slowed, I replaced the glad wrap with some clean stuff. It's possible that I've introduced an infection, but I wouldn't have thought so.

I've just come of a keg of wheat beer, so taste buds should be picking up the bitterness.

Is it possible that S-04 is stripping the hop flavours and bitterness?
 
^ I just used a S04 in a IPA to get more fruity ester and hop character from the beer and it came through. Have been using US05 for most of those style and will soon be trying liquid WLP002 to see how that fares. Stone brewing and Brewdog to name a couple of high quality brewery's from abroad use English strains to get the bitterness and hop character to come through aswell and they have perfected it.

What was your OG, IBU and hop schedule like?
 
OG 1053
FG 1008

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
3.75 kg Pale Malt, Traditional Ale (Joe White) ( Grain 1 60.8 %
1.00 kg Munich 1 Malt (Weyermann) (17.7 EBC) Grain 2 16.2 %
0.60 kg Wheat Malt, Malt Craft (Joe White) (3.5 Grain 3 9.7 %
0.50 kg Caramunich 1 Malt (Weyermann) (110.3 EBC Grain 4 8.1 %
0.20 kg Cara-Pils Malt (Weyermann) (3.9 EBC) Grain 5 3.2 %
0.12 kg Acid Malt (5.9 EBC) Grain 6 1.9 %
35.00 g Fuggles [3.52 %] - First Wort 60.0 min Hop 7 13.9 IBUs
30.00 g Pride of Ringwood [5.80 %] - First Wort Hop 8 19.6 IBUs
20.00 g Fuggles [4.98 %] - Boil 30.0 min Hop 9 7.9 IBUs
20.00 g Styrian Goldings [3.80 %] - Boil 30.0 mi Hop 10 6.0 IBUs
10.00 g Fuggles [4.98 %] - Boil 10.0 min Hop 11 1.9 IBUs
10.00 g Styrian Goldings [4.80 %] - Boil 10.0 mi Hop 12 1.8 IBUs
1.0 pkg SafAle English Ale (DCL/Fermentis #S-04) Yeast 13 -




Name Description Step Temperat Step Time
Protein Add 35.83 l of water at 55.3 C 53.0 C 5 min
Sacc Add 0.00 l of water and heat to 63.0 C 63.0 C 45 min
Sacc Add 0.00 l of water and heat to 72.0 C 72.0 C 15 min
Mash Out Add 0.00 l of water and heat to 78.0 C 78.0 C 15 min



Another thing is that it's not very clear, I always thought S-04 was high flocculating. i often use gelatin to clear my beers, but didn't worry about it this time. I C.C'd for about 2-3 weeks.

Pour my first beer and it's cloudy and then lacks the hop backbone I was after.
 
Do you normally FWH ? I recently used it on a IPA and used columbus to 35ibu and it was very rounded compared to usual boil additions of that hop. However the 30m addition should have seen some sharper bitterness.... did you adjust your water with Gypsum ? ( not sure if you do that )

My SO4 floculated great and it was a bit concerning as I'm so used to US05 having around for a few more days but I went on to dry hop it heavy and its now a hop hazed beer, Id go ahead with the Gelatine as per normal.

Its hard to say if its the yeast that has affected the bitterness outcome, maybe someone that has used S04 like a religion can advise.
 
Thanks Pratty, I FWH pretty much all my beers now, I've done 60min etc, but I've settled on FWH as my default bittering. I like the mellow bittering effect it (usually) has on my beer.

I don't adjust with gypsum, actually, I don't do any water adjustments, other than Acid malt.

The beer tastes quite ok, it's just very malt forward and that's not what I was expecting.
 
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