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Amount of yeast

Barrel Char Wood Products

wader

NewBee
Registered Member
May 9, 2012
5
0
0
I'm gonna be starting my first Braggot using the 5 gal recipe below. It calls for 10g of d-47. The guy at the homebrew supply store thot 5g would be enough. Am I safe going by the recipe or should I use only 5g?

Whole grain option:
4 Ibs. (1.82 kg) crushed pale malt
0.5 lb. (227 g) crushed crystal malt
Alternative extract option:
3-3 Ibs. (1-5 kg) pale malt extract syrup or 3 Ibs. (1-36 kg) pale dry
malt extract
Ingredients for both methods:
2 02. (56.7 g) Cascade hop pellets, -5-5 alpha acid units (optional)
10 Ibs. (4.55 kg) medium amber honey. 1 recommend tulip poplar
or tupelo, if available. Berry-blossom crop honeys are also very
appealing.
2 tsp. (19.8 g) yeast nutrient
2 tsp. (19.8 g) yeast energizer
10 g LaJvin D-47 yeast
 

Chevette Girl

All around BAD EXAMPLE
Moderator
Lifetime GotMead Patron
Apr 27, 2010
8,443
53
48
Ottawa, ON
Typically, the 5 g packets sold are fine for batch size up to 5 gallons. If you scale a recipe down to a 1 gallon batch, you can use the whole packet, so increasing the amount of yeast is certainly not going to hurt anything. I don't yet know enough about beermaking to spot if there's anything exceptional about this recipe that might require it...

Some folks here regularly "over-pitch" for their meads, but I usually don't, I figure if I double the amount of yeast required, all it's doing is taking 90-120 minutes off the time it takes to get it going (this is the approximate amount of time it takes for a single yeast cell to multiply, so the doubling time for the whole culture). If you've ever seen a graph of something that doubles over time, it'll start off slow but get very high very fast (logarithmic, if I recall correctly), even if you start with 1 cell, soon you have 2, then 4, then 8, then 16, then 32, then 64, then 128, 256, 512, and so on... of course, in a closed environment, they'll slow down the rate and stop reproducing when they start nearing the maximum colony for the environment. My point is, one doubling in the grand scheme of things really isn't much, they only get to their population threshhold one doubling time faster... Of course, having tried under-pitching running on this same theory, it often works out fine, but every now and then, it doesn't. And yeast packets are cheap, for a $1 purchase, it's not really worth the risk of having something else get there first.
 
Last edited:

akueck

Certified Mead Mentor
Certified Mead Mentor
Jun 26, 2006
4,958
11
0
Ithaca, NY
5 g is probably "sufficient", but using 10 g is totally fine. I'd probably use 10 g. Many beer yeasts that come in dry packages are 11 g for 5 gallons, and that's just for 1.050-70 range beers.
 

hepcat

Worker Bee
Registered Member
Feb 7, 2012
282
4
18
Central Florida
Good luck wader. Are you using whole grain or extract?

I'm doing a very similar recipe, using extract.
I'm going to use 4 lbs DME, 1/2 lb 10L crystal malt(milled), 1oz Cascade hop pellets, and 8 lbs orange blossom honey, yeast nutrient, energizer and 10g Lalvin D47. I'm waiting for a metheglin 3 gallon batch to finish fermenting in my 6.5 gal fermenting bucket that I need for the braggot. I hope to get the braggot started this coming weekend.
 

wader

NewBee
Registered Member
May 9, 2012
5
0
0
I'm using extract. My instructions say rack to secondary when fermentation slows. The starting SG was 1.095. How low should I go before racking to secondary?
 

Nathan K

NewBee
Registered Member
I'm using extract. My instructions say rack to secondary when fermentation slows. The starting SG was 1.095. How low should I go before racking to secondary?

I usually wait to rack until the yeast really starts to flocculate and falls out to the bottom. It's usually really obvious because the color of the liquid noticeably changes if you are using a transparent fermenter. If you rack before the yeast flocculates then you will probably have to rack again shortly after that because you don't want any yeast autolysis.

akueck said:
5 g is probably "sufficient", but using 10 g is totally fine. I'd probably use 10 g. Many beer yeasts that come in dry packages are 11 g for 5 gallons, and that's just for 1.050-70 range beers.

Yes, it probably is "sufficient" but to be on the safe side, I usually pitch at the rates recommended for professional use. I've noticed a lot of variations between the directions that yeast manufacturers give to home users and the directions that they give to professional winemakers. For home use, they simply suggest 5g for 5 gallons. For professional use, most yeast manufacturers recommend closer to 10 to 20 grams per 5 gallons for the same strains. I think that is why we are starting to see larger yeast packets come onto the market for home use for both beer and wine strains (for instance, the Vinter's Harvest wine yeast is larger than 5g).
 

hepcat

Worker Bee
Registered Member
Feb 7, 2012
282
4
18
Central Florida
What I've done so far is use 5g for one or two gallon batches, ~7g for a three gallon batch and 10g in a four and a five gallon batch. And I've had no trouble with the yeast or fermentation in any of those batches so far.
 

wader

NewBee
Registered Member
May 9, 2012
5
0
0
will this clear?

Will this bragott clear or will it be similar to a bock beer and be dark and cloudy? My recipe says nothing about clearing.
 

akueck

Certified Mead Mentor
Certified Mead Mentor
Jun 26, 2006
4,958
11
0
Ithaca, NY
It has to potential to clear. Unless you get something like a chill haze from the grain component (which you might get in a beer treated in a similar manner), I would expect it to clear up just fine. If it is dark enough you might not really notice the difference between clear and slightly cloudy though...
 
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