Mangrove Jack M44 West Coast ; repitched

[Bigveees]

This is only the 4th time I've repitched a dry yeast and I seem to get different results each time! It's probably something I'm doing slightly differently each time and that I've been using different yeasts.... I feel that the pitch rate is a slight guess work without a lab.

Having had a steady brew with the M44 West Coast and knowing I was going to do another pale in a few days, I took the opportunity to collect 150mls of light yeast from the fermenter as it looked nice and clean.

With a 23l wort batch at 1.059 on brew day I decided that I would need the whole lot, so lumped it all in . 20 hours later I had a nice krausen! 4 days in I was expecting it to have fermented out, so I took a gravity reading and it was 1.020 it had a lovely thick (maybe too thick for some) head which I decided was a little OTT. So with a sterile slotted spoon I top cropped the excess.

Two days later with an expected gravity at 1.012 I am ready to keg/bottle up, or so I thought! Having had a sip of it and tasting some flavours of what I expect are esters or diacytel I now believe it needs a rest. I almost exclusively keg /bottle after 7 days.

So who thinks that it needs the rest? Or will conditioning do the rest for me?

Cheers

Andy

[super_simian]

7 days is very short for a beer over 1.040. I would say too short, but everyone has a different lived experience! I also find US clean ale yeasts need more time than UK estery yeasts - US05 and BRY97 I always give a full fortnight (primary fermentation, ramp up to 21-22C for 3-4days for d-rest, then a 2-4 day CC before packaging).

[Bigveees]

Yeah, I think I've always hurried my beer along and it could well be to its detriment. Only a couple of times when I've done a lager or had a stuck ferment have I spent longer in the primary.

So I gave the repitched brew another 20hrs ferment and then cooled it down to 16C before secondary ferment in keg and bottle, which removed those odours nicely!

When I worked at a commercial brewery they would use a mix of SO4 and US05 which would ferment the beer in 5 and half days, where the last 40 hours would be with a cooler running to bring it down from 20C to 12C. The beers were never more than 1049 OG, but it seemed to work fairly well!

I'm now going to try some more eclectic brews so I'll be more patient.

[Bigveees]

Due to limitations on beer stock, I've drunk a couple of these already. Amazing malt profile in the beer with a simple recipe. Although the yeast has acted more like SO4 than I expected! Now I wish I'd used my old favourite US05.

[Bigveees]

Due to limitations on beer stock, I've drunk a couple of these already. Amazing malt profile in the beer with a simple recipe. Although the yeast has acted more like SO4 than I expected! Now I wish I'd used my old favourite US05.