T-58 lag time

[bmxfrank]

anyone experience this? Generations 1 nd 2 were fine. Yeast then havested and sat for 10-14 days. Next pitch took 36 hours to take off. Hasnt happened before but also first experience with this strain. Is this typical, not, should it not sit so long, etc. Beer seems to fine now but looking for info. Thanks.

[jwalts]

Hey Frank, 10-14 days is pushing it time-wise, especially if you harvested the yeast near the end of maturation on its source batch. A bigger problem may be your pitch rates, though. Are you getting around 0.75-1 million cells per degree plato per mL? That equals about 3-4 pounds of slurry per barrel of 12 Plato wort (4-5 lbs per barrel if you assume 75-80% viability, which should be in the ballpark for yeast that's been sitting around for two weeks).

Joe

[gitchegumee]

Joe, that sounds like an extremely high cell count. I pitch a single 500g package into 10 bbl. Sometimes (like for WB-06), even less @ 350g. Without oxygen, too. And I get fermentation in a few hours. Granted this is with a fresh package, not repitch. I learned that the rule of thumb is 10 million cells/ml/degree P. At least for an ale yeast at "normal" temperatures. That's 100 times less yeast than your recommendation.

[jwalts]

Whoops, I meant to say "million" instead of "billion". I fixed it in my original reply. I've heard 10 million cells per mL before, but that per degree Plato sounds high to me . At 20 billion cells per g of dry yeast (I know the manufacturers claim much lower numbers as guaranteed minimums, but I think 20 billion cells per g is fairly typical for what's actually in there), you're pitching about 8.5 million cells per mL.

Joe

[bmxfrank]

pitch rate

I dont have a lab so I have no idea what the cell count is. I have to go by pounds when using a re-harvested yeast and your call for 4-5 pounds per bbl sounds WAYYYY high. I only pitch about 1-1.5 pounds per barrel at a minimum and have good results with typically 75% attenuation. 7 bbl batches take 7 pounds if an ale and 10 pounds if its a lager. However, this is a belgian strain so maybe it needs more since its always so thin and liquidy so I will pitch more with Belgian and wheat strains. At the begining this was a 500 gram brick into a 7 bbl batch for beers 1 and 2. I have also kept yeast for a few weeks and been OK. Sometimes it might need to be fed, this particular tube was not.

[jwalts]

At the only brewery I've worked at that had a lab, we regularly pitched 600-800 lbs of slurry (harvested on brewday) into 200 barrels of ale. Yeast counts were usually in the ballpark of 700-900 million cells per gram. I think we doubled the pitch rate for lagers, but I don't remember for sure.

Joe