BeerBorg

In doing much research on different types of lagers to brew, one overlying comment I've seen is to make sure that you pitch enough healthy yeast. Especially when it's a higher ABV lager, like a bock. And it got me wondering...is it possible to pitch too much yeast? Can too much yeast have any detrimental effects?

It's possible, but you would need to pitch A LOT of yeast to come closer to pitching too much.

You want the yeast to go through at least some period of a toothpick phase and there's some benefit to having the yeast experience a little stress at the start.

I'm not sure how much you'd need to pitch before you get to the point where you're pitching too much, but home brewers are fat more likely to pitch too little than too much.

bpgreen wrote:Home brewers are fat.

Hey now. J/K

But yes, I would imagine it's possible but hard to do, especially in a Lager or with liquid yeast in general where you do need so much of it. I have the yeast book by JZ and Chris White, might be something I can check out sometime while kicking back.

I also think could over pitch but would be highly unlikely. Run the numbers through this. https://www.brewersfriend.com/yeast-pit ... alculator/ What I try to go by and a number of us here use it. I just started a 2 L starter today for a 1.065 ale using a Wyeast smack and is what came up with. Have had good results on this...

Thanks...I use BeerSmith for recipe formulation, which also gives me yeast pitch rate. I figured it was hard to do, so the question was more a point of conversation of what would happen if it was possible. I've never read anything about this, so I'm just curious on what you all think.

From my reading and the way too many hours of podcasts I listen to, it's almost impossible to overpitch on the homebrew scale. Underpitching is more damaging to the beer (except for those types that are made to flavor the beer like hef's) Safale says that even 2 packs of 05 in a 5 gallon batch will not be noticeable. Maybe if you greatly overpitched you'd have a yeasty taste but I would think much depends on the exact strain of yeast.

The brewers friend calculator above is what I run with at "pro brewer 0.75 or 1.0" rates most of the time, and I have found that those pitch rates in general make "better beer faster". As in I can actually drink my beers at 2 weeks in the bottle and they don't make me sad due to acetaldehyde and the like still being present, they just get done and cleaned up much quicker.

The *only* time I have found those rates to be detrimental is making wheat beer or Belgian beer where I want banana esters. They get suppressed if you pitch too much. Other fruity esters like apple, pear, bubblegum don't seem to be effected as much. You can use that to your advantage with some yeasts, IE for example with Wyeast 3638 (Bavarian Wheat) you can pitch at a high rate but still ferment it warm to reduce the clove phenolics yet remove the banana that would have been produced, but still keep the apple and pear esters it makes.

There is a lot of research behind that calculator, so don't discount it just because it tells you to pitch way more yeast then Mr. Malty. There is a good bit of reading material if you scroll down and spend the time investigating the whys of it.

BlackDuck wrote:Thanks...I use BeerSmith for recipe formulation, which also gives me yeast pitch rate. I figured it was hard to do, so the question was more a point of conversation of what would happen if it was possible. I've never read anything about this, so I'm just curious on what you all think.

I guess really overpitching could strip more and more of the hop character out of a beer. Kind of like a really flocculent yeast does.