BeerBorg

I got a Honey Brown Ale for my next brew, and what I want to know is can you over pitch the yeast and get a different profile form what you should have or can it eliminate any certain taste or sweetness that should be in the beer. I'm planning on using a 1098 wyeast on one LBK and Lallemand Windsor on the other LBK ether yeast should give the beer a sweet slight nutty flavor. Over pitching is my main concern with this 5 gal batch split into 2 LBKs.

Not sure if this is what you want but I've got an old and long thread bookmarked from the HBT that I've used often: http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/why-no ... ke-166221/
There's lots of arguments about just how detrimental overpitching can be. My no one cares opinion says it's hard to really over pitch enough to hurt a beer. Much depends on the style.

I'm with Paul on this one. A lot of times overpitching will produce certain flavor compounds (dependent on strain) that can be desirable in some styles of beer. In my personal experience, I use entire packets of dry yeast (they're 11 grams, if I'm not mistaken) into a Mr. Beer-sized batch of 1.050 or less gravity beer and never had any issues with the beer tasting so off that I've had to dump it. The Mr. Beer dry yeast packets are typically 5 or so grams (half the amount) and are sufficient to ferment beers of the same gravity.

I'm pretty sure that strains of yeast are only going to convert specific amounts of sugars that are in the wort, that is a large part of what makes one strain different from another. With that said even if you had more cells vying for those sugars they wouldn't be able to convert more than their DNA would allow them too. I've also read from several sources that it's pretty hard to over pitch yeast and the same reasoning might be a clue as to why.

Both a true overpitch and an underpitch can cause different flavor profiles then a "normal" pitch. Mostly due to changing the duration of the growth phase, which in a clean American style or Lager might be a good thing in the overpitch scenario, but in some beers where the yeast flavor is supposed to be more in play maybe not so much. A good bit of flavor can be produced in the growth phase although YMMV depending on the yeast strain.

BUT it's very hard to truly overpitch and an 11.5g yeast pack in a 2 gallon batch is not really an overpitch, nor is any starter that Mr. Malty would suggest.... it's really really hard to truly overpitch. You have to work at it or spend more money then most home brewers tend to do...

IE Danstars current suggested pitch rate for the most rapid completed fermentation is actually 2 packs of 11.5g yeast in 5 gallons for some of their strains (even Bella Saison which is a yeast that benefits from growth phase flavors). Folks tend to not do that because nobody wants to spend twice as much money on the yeast - but it's safe to do it. And for those of us who pitch 11.5g packs into 2.5 gallons, we are doing what they suggest really. Those who pitch 11.5g into a 5 gallon batch are basically doing a similar thing then the 5g Mr. Beer pack in a Mr. Beer batch according to Danstar in those scenarios. It still works but Danstar would say more is still better.

mashani wrote:It still works but Danstar would say more is still better.

As soon as they sell two packets for $3.99 I'll be happy to do that.

I'm no expert - but my 5 gallon batches come out just fine using a packet of S-05, S-04, Notty, or Windsor. I split them between two LBKs and the beer is good.

Too bad you can't buy a brick of S-05 and use it over a year or two. Much cheaper.

I regularly pitch two packets of Fermentis yeasts with no starter into my 5.5 gallon recipes. They are usually higher OG recipes though. And BeerSmith will tell you how many of packets of dry yeast to pitch. If it tells me to pitch two, then I pitch two. If it tells me that I only need to pitch one, then I pitch one.

So..if your using BeerSmith check it out.

Thank to the Borg I always seem to get an answer I'm looking for. I'll be checking out Beer smith and see what comes out. Once again Thanks.

I once pitched an entire package of 05 in a one gallon batch. Believe me you CAN over pitch. That stuff came out tasting really chalky, or something definitely too much yeast related. That being said anytime I have a gravity around 1.070 I like to double pitch. I read a while back, if I remember correctly, 5 gallons of 1.050ish beer should need about 100 billion cells, a typical dry yeast package has 200 billion.

Last few batches I've been using White labs liquid yeast. I do LBK size batches (2-2.5 gallons.) I've been using the whole vile in these size batches with no apparent issues.

Ibasterd wrote:I've been using the whole vile in these size batches with no apparent issues.

I would think that if you vile yeast your beer would taste, well, vile... But, if you use a vial of good yeast it would taste better.

Depending on my OG and what I'm making, I'll pitch a vial of White Labs directly into a 2.5 gallon batch of beer without a starter as long as it's not more then 3 months old. It ends up being "enough", in the same since that a 5g pack of yeast is also "enough". It may not be optimal, but "enough".