Pitching yeast slurry from a beer that stalled

[simpleton]

Evening,

I brewed an alt bier and the mash was all over the show due to me having issues with my smoker at the same time. Temps were far too high for quite some time and I expected the beer to stall. And it did. I pitched the white labs alt bier yeast (sizeable starter) that took the beer from 1050 -->1020 in 36 hours then abruptly stopped. My brewing partner fermented the other half of the wort with safale dry lager yeast and that too abrubtly stalled at 1020.

Not to worry I thought and ordered a gigayeast brett blend from brewuk. Which when delivered on monday will be put into secondary with this 1020 beer to leave until summer. I expect it to be quite nice in a few months, but taste absolutely nothing like an alt bier or the sach yeast that orginally fermented it. But I still want an alt bier.. I was thinking of just rebrewing it and pitching some of the slurry. There is 500ml of it in the collection bottle of my fermentor.

But not sure if this is a recipe for another stalled beer and it would be safer to use new yeast? £17 of yeast went into the last one once the brett was included so don't wanna have to stump up for another pack of liquid yeast!

What do you reckon?

Cheers,
Si

[Kev888]

Generally I'd advise against re-pitching yeast from problem batches. But I guess 'IF' you are certain that only the wort was the problem, and all else is fine, then it could be reasonable to re-pitch if saving cost of yeast is necessary. 1.020 isn't ridiculous after all; some of my higher OG beers finish above that quite naturally.

But being cautious, I'd still be tempted to take a smaller amount and make a starter from it, in order to evaluate performance before committing to a full batch. Even then, aside from any outright problems, the previous fermentation may have favoured cells that coped better with the worty oddness, so the dominant characteristics of the yeast may have altered a little if that matters to your intentions. I doubt it would be very much though.

[simpleton]

Good advice, cheers. I had thought that the long chain sugars might have favoured yeast I don’t want. I had not considered pulling some and doing a starter. That’s a good idea. Still got time befor Monday to ferment one out.

If it fails then I’ll brew a saison and split the Brett between the saison (with some saison yeast) and the secondary of the stalled beer.

It’s 1018 now but it’s way too sweet for the style. And to be honest I’ve been meaning to get something funky on for a while so all is not lost. It will make a great summer beer

[orlando]

Good advice, cheers. I had thought that the long chain sugars might have favoured yeast I don’t want. I had not considered pulling some and doing a starter. That’s a good idea. Still got time befor Monday to ferment one out.

If it fails then I’ll brew a saison and split the Brett between the saison (with some saison yeast) and the secondary of the stalled beer.

It’s 1018 now but it’s way too sweet for the style. And to be honest I’ve been meaning to get something funky on for a while so all is not lost. It will make a great summer beer

Do a Fast Ferment Test .

[simpleton]

Figured i could probably do both.

Pulled about 200ml out of collection bottle and dropped it into 2l of DME. Now on a stir plate. Will give it till Monday and see what it finishes at. Ideally I want the alt bier on the dry end of the style so probs aiming for 1010 / 1011.

As an aside my Gigayeast brett blet blend turned up, there is tons of it compared to a White labs pack. Its has 200billion cells and is only 19 days old. So not sure I need all that for a 23litre secondary. Will save some and get a saison on the go as well.

[Eric]

As an aside my Gigayeast brett blet blend turned up, there is tons of it compared to a White labs pack. Its has 200billion cells and is only 19 days old. So not sure I need all that for a 23litre secondary. Will save some and get a saison on the go as well.

Was it this stuff?

[McMullan]

Repitching slurry that deviated from expectations is a bit like doing this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtvG9XDtjv4