BeerBorg

fermenting a Russian imperial stout. I started by rehydrating 2 packs of notty, pitched a little warmish but not overly so. since it is only a 3 gallon batch I would be only a ltitle under pitching.

I fed it a multi vitamin and sacrificial yeast at start. took off like lightning in 12 hours and by day 2 had nearly 1.5 inch of thick healthy krausen.

question: I am fermenting at 62f... and on opening the chiller box to swap ice, got hit full in the face by banana smells???

I could understand this from a hefeweisen yeast... but notty?? anyone else get this?

How warm did you pitch?

It could be that the added stress from the high gravity wort, plus the warmer initial start caused it to throw off some banana esters.

Is 62* the ambient temp of your chamber, or the temp of the fermenting beer?

Also, how big is this beer that 2 packs of Notty is UNDER pitching for a 3 gallon batch!?

I'm with Jon. Nottingham is a beast and can chew through a LOT of malt in a short amount of time. And in my experience, it does so pretty cleanly at lower temperatures. It'll handle fairly high OG beers without blinking and attenuates well, also (if I get 75% attenuation, I figure I must have mashed high or something).

Is that a typo and you meant 52? 62 isn't close to low temperature with Nottingham, especially if you're pitching two packets in a 3 gallon batch. IIRC, it's officially rated down to 57 or 54 if you overpitch. I've pitched a single packet in a 5 gallon batch and fermented in the low to mid 50s (if in the low 50s, I make sure to rehydrate) on a number of occasions and never had a problem.

If you pitched "a little warmish" and used two packets for a 3 gallon batch, it could be that it ramped up from "a little warmish" to "rather warmish" in the first few hours. The recommended range is 57-70, but I don't think I've ever used it about about 65 on purpose.

I am thinking it is either the "warmish" thing or you over pitched. Maybe both.

I've fermented a batch with Notty where it pushed 70 and that actually turned out quite clean. It was a lower gravity batch though. So I don't know what it would take to make banana in the end result. A huge pitch in a huge beer could easily spike temps 10+ degrees above ambient though I'm sure.

mashani wrote:I've fermented a batch with Notty where it pushed 70 and that actually turned out quite clean. It was a lower gravity batch though. So I don't know what it would take to make banana in the end result. A huge pitch in a huge beer could easily spike temps 10+ degrees above ambient though I'm sure.

I had one raise the temperature of my fermentation 10 degrees to 76F. It stayed there a couple of days and I got no off flavors from it. I was just sure my beer was going to be ruined.

jon.. think I pitched at 72f . had a big block of ice in cooler and managed to bring temps down to fermenting temp of 62f (inside fermenter).

fermentation was vigorous. starting grav was about 1.07. after 3 days of fermentation when the krausen was beginning to settle I added d180...which of course is going to make things go nuts again. (don't have my notes atm for exact numbers)

pitched 2 packs, rehydrated. as mentioned I fed them half a pack of sacrificial yeast that I boiled to death, with half a centrum multivitamin. I like to treat the yeast well.

temps have been at lowest 59f.. highest 63.5f when I had to swap out ice. I don't mind banana but was just wondering. ive never had notty throw off banana smells before. love this yeast. it always seems to be extremely eager to rip through anything you can throw at it .. like us 04.

thanks all..

gymrat, I would never call a beer ruined unless it was infected with ecoli, or tasted like crap, or was unfixable. the one beer that came close for me was a pumkin wizbier from mrb that was next to awful on its own. I just tossed in some orange drink powder to offset the ick... and by the last bottle it was actually not half bad.

a close second in the ick category for me was a beer I made using cabbage water for the brewing water... and cereal. bleh... I 'fixed' that by adding half a can of commercial beer to it to mask the taste.

I'm not overly worried about the banana getting into the beer taste as notty usually is clean for me. just thought it odd to smell naners . think i'll chalk it up to the yeast making the temp rise super high super fast and them getting stressed. that krausen was something else. wish I could have watched it firsthand through the fermenter but I use plastic buckets.

I'm kinda curious about the multivitamin addition, as this is new to me. I think I'd be concerned about metallic flavors from the iron or something like that. My head tells me that human nutrient needs are different than yeast nutrient needs, but I admittedly could be way off base here. Is this something that you all do?

Welp, only one thing to do now...

RDWHAHB!

You'd be better served going to the LHBS and getting some yeast nutrient.

swenocha wrote:I'm kinda curious about the multivitamin addition, as this is new to me. I think I'd be concerned about metallic flavors from the iron or something like that. My head tells me that human nutrient needs are different than yeast nutrient needs, but I admittedly could be way off base here. Is this something that you all do?

^This^
I'm curious to hear more about this as well. I use Wyeast Yeast Nutrient that I picked up from MoreBeer but my curiosity is killing me here.

And, I really need to try this yeast at some point. From everything I've read and recall, it's a good clean yeast so use in a pale or IPA would be appropriate, yeah?

Kealia wrote:

swenocha wrote:I'm kinda curious about the multivitamin addition, as this is new to me. I think I'd be concerned about metallic flavors from the iron or something like that. My head tells me that human nutrient needs are different than yeast nutrient needs, but I admittedly could be way off base here. Is this something that you all do?

^This^
I'm curious to hear more about this as well. I use Wyeast Yeast Nutrient that I picked up from MoreBeer but my curiosity is killing me here.

And, I really need to try this yeast at some point. From everything I've read and recall, it's a good clean yeast so use in a pale or IPA would be appropriate, yeah?

It's usually a good clean yeast and is known for attenuating well. I think it's great for APAs and IPAs. If you brew in the mid 50s, it comes out almost lager like.

swenocha..
ive used a half or qtr centrum tablet, crushed up... added to boiled yeast... as yeast nutrient on and off for a couple years with no off tastes. I add this when doing a high grav beer, hobo wine, mead. the yeast absolutely love it. theres nothing in the vitamin that doesn't already occur naturally .. minerals, vitamins, etc. I added this to a starter and in just a few hours it took off. a few hours more the krausen was spewing out the top of the flask despite there having been about 5 inches of headspace. the volume of water used for this process is minimal... a quart? maybe? i used this method first because i didn't want to drive out to the lhbs to get yeast nutrient/energizer...also because i don't like the idea of adding ammonia phosphate or other chemicals to my beer.
i figured if it was good for me why not give it a try?

some commercial yeast nutrients like wyeast i think are nothing more than vitamins, minerals etc anyway.