Your gravity figures when using Hop Back yeast

[SiHoltye]

I've got a brew fermenting now with this yeast and the fermentation has slowed on day 4, now 1.017 from 1.042. Someone here mentioned not great attenuation when they used this yeast and I wondered what other people's numbers were.

When you've used Hop Back yeast what was your Original Gravity and Final Gravity, and how long was the fermentation?

Thanks.

[Hogarth]

I did a Summer Lightning with Hop Back yeast that stopped at 1016. I think I underpitched.

Here are the numbers (Sorry, no graph )

OG -----1046
Day 2 ---1040
Day 3 ---1032
Day 4 --- 1027
Day 5 --- 1022
Day 6 --- 1020 (Roused)
Day 8 --- 1016 (Roused)
Day 9 --- 1016 (Gave up)

[RabMaxwell]

At 3 1/2 days i have 1.016 from 1.045 it's slowing down too it's a scottish ale if it gets down to 1.012 it will do me.One thing the yeast head has dropped on mine the surface is clear but it's still working away.

[coatesg]

1.013 or so from 1.050 for a Summer Lightning-like brew last Sept (mashed 100% Maris Otter at 64C). That was from a 1.8ish litre starter (made up from 200ml). I used a half tsp of brew-vit at pitching which may have helped slightly - I was able to skim twice and have the yeast head completely reform each time...

Repitched the skimmed stuff, and (apparently) got 1.008 from 1.042, though not sure why that got so low - my pitching rate may well have been substantially higher though.

[Scooby]

1.042 - 1.014 in four days then just about stopped, Dropped yeast at 8 days, kegged on day 12 with FG of 1.013.

Two brews so far with yeast and both about the same attenuation. I can't find it now but read somewhere that someone had contacted Hop Back and was told to expect a FG of 1.014 from a 1.040 wort.

Edit That was you and it was after 48Hrs. Bad memory

[Northern Brewer]

I've just pitched this yeast from a stepped 2 litre starter, which itself had got down to 1014 but probably could have gone a bit further. The preceding 250ml starter got down to 1012. I never measured the original wort, but both were made at the ratio of 100g of spray malt in 1 litre water, which I believe comes out at 1040 after a 15 minute boil.

EDIT: The resultant 1042 beer eventually got down to 1011 without any interference on my part.

[alefric]

2 Bottle dregs into 250ml starter stepped to 1.25ltrs....Summer Lightning clone from GW's book my OG 1.048....FV for one week G1.016 then into SFV for another week and just kegged at G1.012 which seems o.k.....will just have to see if it tastes o.k in a few weeks.

Andrew

[Hogarth]

All these other responses must have shamed my yeast into action again. I took a reading just now and it was 1014, after 11 days in the fermenter.

[RabMaxwell]

My Hop Back yeast brew is at 1.012 at day 4 1/2 ish now & still working away slowly too. Not bad as i have discovered that my mash-tun temperature controller probe has been 4oc out so i mashed at 68-69oc.Insidently the main batch from this brew i pitched with safale 04 & it's at 1.016.

[coatesg]

My Hop Back yeast brew is at 1.012 at day 4 1/2 ish now & still working away slowly too.

I found that it does keep chugging slowly way towards the end too. All the brews I've done withg it all had 2 weeks to let it finish up.

[SiHoltye]

This all sounds interesting chaps, thanks. I feel it unlikely that the brewery waits as long as 10 days or 2 weeks for primary fermentation to complete, so conclude there must be something we can do to chivvy this yeast along. Pitching and leaving it, rousing when it looks like it's slowing down doesn't seem to give performance anywhere close to what would appease a modern brewhouse manager.

I'm brewing a SL clone on Friday with slurry reclaimed from this brew (it'll just have to continue it's dribbling toward FG in a corni) and intend to drop aerate after 16 hrs of fermentation. Really it's to try and emulate the pumped in sterile air regime Hop Back have on their fermentors. Thread with info on brewery yeast practices

[SiHoltye]

I will increase the starter size next time. I used the swirling ocassionally technique in 1.040 spraymalt. First dregs of 2 bottles in about 250ml I think, and then stepped to 2500ml. Fermented that out and pitched. I'll try 4 bottles/400ml/4000ml next time...it'll mean drinking 4 bottles in one sitting...but hey sacrifices eh Might as well use the available volume of those spring 5L water containers from the supermarket.
I could question whether to drop the next brew, but breweries surely pitch enough of the yeast as it's all around them batch to batch. They must aerate for a reason...pumps aren't cheap.

[SiHoltye]

At the moment I haven't aerated post pitching and fermentation is sluggish. But if I pitch at a rate where post pitch aeration isn't required to reach anticipated attenuation in good time, wouldn't that put me in the position of potentially over pitching based on what the brewery do, and not having the yeast character come through that they presumably obtain from encouraging growing the yeast on during their aeration phase? I'm keener on getting the characteristics of their yeast they do than deviating from what they do just to achieve full attenuation sacrificing beer flavour for ease of process. If I can achieve this through just dropping from one FV to another it's a pretty easy trade to make. Of course I don't know if it'll work yet.

Think I've convinced myself to ape the brewery with some kind of air adding process early in the ferment. The current brew has got to 1.016 from 1.042 in 5 days, so although not great it's in the bounds of other peoples experiences and they achieved ~78% attenuation although admittedly after longer than ideal ~2 weeks.

[SiHoltye]

I've got the slurry from a 1.042 batch to pick for the 1.049 SL clone on friday. I'm think of scooping up 500ml of the combined top and bottom yeastiness after racking current brew. TBH honest and I think everyone would agree, not dropping/aerating would be easier than dropping/aerating. Do you think quantity would be sufficient to attenuate 1.049 to 5% inside a week? It'd be nice to find it does. Perhaps those people who've not had SG's drop as they'd like have underpitched a bit. It's deffo possible as startering from bottles is not a set-in-stone procedure.

Um...er...um...er...

Logically (damn it you make sense again) it'd be easiest now with this available yeast, to pitch a goodly amount and monitor it's progress to see if increasing the pitching rate would produce better results. It's a window of opportunity available right here and now. Home brewing on my scale using dropping would mean aerating the whole batch, at the brewery they recirculate who only knows how much in what overall volume. Quite possibly the 2 processes might not be equal in their effect and in their outcome.

In the view of the available yeast, logically it's increasing the pitching rate that should be tried first.


Mr Malty thinks I might need less yeast, but I'm inclined to go big here. It may be thinner than anticipated/intended once it's settle a little as these things do.

[SiHoltye]

I did a bit of phoning around yesterday and found the following which I posted on my 'Channel Hopper' thread.

Hop Back Brewery
Just spoke to Steve at the brewery, he said that after pitching at not a particularly high rate they pump in sterile air (not O2) in to the fermentor for 20 mins of every hour for the first 12 hours, then let it rest for 12hrs. Then they do the same 4 times more - 20 mins in hour for the next 4 hours. After 48hrs he'd expect a 1.040 wort to have attenuated to 1.014.
He emphasised the importance of oxygen to their yeast during fermentation.

Thoroughly nice man.

So far each brewery I have pestered on the dog - Harvey's, Ringwood, Hop Back, have the fact they use a traditional brewery yeast and they 'rouse' in some way in common.

That's the background to all I'm considering, that and peoples experiences of slow/low levels of attenuation with HB yeast (though that could be underpitching as mentioned).