Dead yeast help

[tikitatt]

So I brewed a batch of pilsner from a recipe found in a book I own. I followed the extract brewing to the letter and found out I pretty much made a non-alcoholic beer. The yeast I used (given to me by my cousin) expired back in March and sadly I didn’t catch that when I was brewing. Is there any way to revive this batch or should I just use it for cooking purposes now? Other then it not having the proper alcohol content it tastes really good.

HELP!

Thanks,
John

[lexuschris]

So I brewed a batch of pilsner from a recipe found in a book I own. I followed the extract brewing to the letter and found out I pretty much made a non-alcoholic beer.

Did you come to this conclusion by a gravity reading? What was the OG and FG? Or was it by taste?

If your OG is pretty close to your FG, then it may very well be the yeast never got going. If your final gravity is lower, but not where you want it to go, the yeast tired out and went dorment. Either way, adding a fresh innoculation of active yeast to your beer should take your FG down lower.

Let us know your gravity readings, and where your beer is located right now... in a keg? in bottles? in the fermenter?
--LexusChris

[tikitatt]

It's pretty much the same OG/FG 1.1 Gravity, 1% alcohol, 2.5 sugar. However the taste although the flavor was good the alcohol wasn't there. The last reading was on 11/19 and is sitting in a carboy. So, do I buy another bottle of yeast and add it straight to the carboy?

Thanks,
John

So I brewed a batch of pilsner from a recipe found in a book I own. I followed the extract brewing to the letter and found out I pretty much made a non-alcoholic beer.

Did you come to this conclusion by a gravity reading? What was the OG and FG? Or was it by taste?

If your OG is pretty close to your FG, then it may very well be the yeast never got going. If your final gravity is lower, but not where you want it to go, the yeast tired out and went dorment. Either way, adding a fresh innoculation of active yeast to your beer should take your FG down lower.

Let us know your gravity readings, and where your beer is located right now... in a keg? in bottles? in the fermenter?
--LexusChris

[lexuschris]

I'm not sure if I understand what your original gravity was. If it was 1.100, that would be a very strong beer indeed! Strong beers definitely need some extra care with the yeast. (healty yeast starter, big yeast count, O2 in the wort, etc.)

If you meant that the ratio of OG/FG was 1.1, so that your OG was about 10% higher than your FG.. well, presuming that your OG was < 1.060 on the hydrometer, I think you will do well to add another vial of healthy yeast. Best practice would be to create a starter 1500ml or so and pitch that in there.

How long has it been since you pitched the original yeast?

One of the advantages of pitching healthy yeast just after the wort cools down, is that it will fight out any hostile bacteria that might be there. So, when a wort sits for along period of time without yeast activity, there is a chance (just a chance) that something else will take hold and start eating all those sugars. The fact that it tastes fine now is a good sign! However, lets get an active yeast going on this ASAP. You might want to sprinkle a dry yeast (US-05) and forgoe the vials on this re-pitch. The dry yeast come fully ready to assimilate & eat those starches.

Hopefully a few others can offer suggestions...
--LexusChris

[nico soze]

It's pretty much the same OG/FG 1.1 Gravity, 1% alcohol, 2.5 sugar. However the taste although the flavor was good the alcohol wasn't there. The last reading was on 11/19 and is sitting in a carboy. So, do I buy another bottle of yeast and add it straight to the carboy?

Thanks,
John

i don't understand that.

[bwarbiany]

What yeast are you using? Being a pilsner, are you using a true lager yeast or are you approximating it with an ale yeast?

What temp has it been at? If you've been fermenting it at true lager temps (48-54 deg F), that's probably cold enough to retard the growth of most spoiling organisms... I'd say repitch and go from there.

Lexuschris makes a good point to use dry yeast. But if you want to retain the lager quality of it, buy two packs of SafLager (I recently used the W-34/70 and liked it) and pitch it. Lagers typically require large starters, so if you were relying on simply a single vial of liquid lager yeast, you severely underpitched. 2 packs of SafLager solves that issue.

[nico soze]

Wait wait wait. Your original gravity was 1.100? Your gravity right now is still 1.100? What do you mean by alcohol 1%. My hillbilly estimations put your alcohol potential at around 10%abv. And what does. "2.5 sugar" refer to? Has your gravity changed at all from brew day?
Would you mind posting the recipe as it shows in the book? Cuz this just looks weird to me.

[bwarbiany]

It almost sounds like those numbers were read off a triple scale hydrometer:

http://gillesenergies.webs.com/hydrometers.htm

If so, it almost sounds like your FG was 1.010, sugar % (brix) of 2.5, and potential alcohol of 1%.

Which is of course the wrong way to read a hydrometer...

If you just waited until fermentation was complete to take a gravity reading, that sounds like numbers you might see on a triple scale hydrometer. But the alcohol number on that hydrometer actually doesn't mean anything. To figure out alcohol content, though, you need to take a hydrometer reading *before* fermentation, then one after fermentation, and alcohol percentage can be derived from those two numbers.

[brahn]

Assuming a partial boil, it's also possible that he took an OG reading after topping off the fermenter with water and read 1.010. I noted several times that the gravity reading would be off by a lot if I didn't give it a good stir back when I did partial boils.

If this is an extract recipe, post it and we can tell you for sure what your OG was and then you can use the FG reading to determine the actual alcohol content.

Other then it not having the proper alcohol content it tastes really good.

Two things about this:

1. If it tastes really good, then drink it. Who cares if it doesn't have the right amount of alcohol? If you actually brewed a 1% beer (I doubt it) that tastes really good, I bet there's a huge market out there for you.

2. I cannot imagine anyone describing unfermented wort this way, so my guess is that it fermented just fine.

[backyard brewer]

Two things about this:

1. If it tastes really good, then drink it. Who cares if it doesn't have the right amount of alcohol? If you actually brewed a 1% beer (I doubt it) that tastes really good, I bet there's a huge market out there for you.

2. I cannot imagine anyone describing unfermented wort this way, so my guess is that it fermented just fine.

+1. Unfermented wort is nasty bitter-sweet and not good. So if your beer tastes good, it fermented. I think Bwarbiany is on to something with just having a final read and no initial read.

[dhempy]

I concur with BackyardBrewer, Brahn, and Bwarbiany. You probably fermented OK. Post the recipe and we'll see if we can back into your approximate OG and from there % alcohol, attenuation, etc.

And if you need a hydrometer refresher ... have a look at this section of Palmer.

You can also watch this video.

Dan

[tikitatt]

It could be off and wouldn't doubt it by any means. After all I was on my second Bruery growler for the day. I'll try to stay sober and read the hydrometer properly next time but there are never any guarantees when I drink. ha, ha! I'm in the process of painting my game room and have all my books piled up in the garage and can't get to them right now. I'll be happy to post the recipe once I can locate my book. Thanks

It almost sounds like those numbers were read off a triple scale hydrometer:

http://gillesenergies.webs.com/hydrometers.htm

If so, it almost sounds like your FG was 1.010, sugar % (brix) of 2.5, and potential alcohol of 1%.

Which is of course the wrong way to read a hydrometer...

If you just waited until fermentation was complete to take a gravity reading, that sounds like numbers you might see on a triple scale hydrometer. But the alcohol number on that hydrometer actually doesn't mean anything. To figure out alcohol content, though, you need to take a hydrometer reading *before* fermentation, then one after fermentation, and alcohol percentage can be derived from those two numbers.