[mpietropaoli]

Wow, did a double brewday with 2 american IPAs (both around 1.062).  Pitched about 1 cup of pure slurry into each, harvested from a 2L starter of new S-04.

Pitched on Sunday morning at 64 degrees, had visible airlock activity within 4 hours (temp maintained), went to go top crop some this afternoon, and boom, the krausen had already dropped....on both fermenters!

Has anyone had a krausen drop within 48 hours?  I know I borderline overpitched, but that is damned quick!

[bigchicken]

I don't top crop, but yes I've seen a full krausen drop out completely in a 12 hour timeframe. I should note it took 3 days to form a krausen, but then it was done super quick. I used a ton of sugar in that beer and was not using s-04. Not sure if the sugar was part of the result or not.

[hamiltont]

S-04 is a very, very fast fermenter. In my experience almost all activity is over in a couple of days. It still needs time to clean up though. Cheers!!!

[euge]

I've had a few ferment out that fast and with less yeast. Sounds like you definitely over-pitched with the cup of pure & fresh yeast. The beer should be fine and a faster turnaround isn't always a bad thing!

[bluesman]

My experince with S-04 is such that it ferments quickly and flocculates rather quickly (68F) as well.  I like using it for those reasons alone, although I prefer the equivalent liquid strains particularly WLP002.

[mpietropaoli]

Around the interweb, there is a lot of hate on S-04.  But of course I trust this forum more than any of the others 

Ended up turning the temp controller up to 66, giving each fermenter a few swirls, and hoping for the best.  Saw some consistent airlock activity for another 48 hours (originally thought it was just the CO2 purging as the temp warmed, but it was pretty consistent over that time).  Going to take a gravity reading and see where I'm @ tomorrow. 

The gravity before I swirled was only 1.030 or so...hopefully i dropped to low teens

voila, the S-04 Haterade!
http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?topic=13175.15

[mpietropaoli]

One of the beers has fully stalled at 1.028...just under a cup of slurry, at about 62 degrees.  Hasn't moved since two days after pitching

[euge]

One of the beers has fully stalled at 1.028...just under a cup of slurry, at about 62 degrees.  Hasn't moved since two days after pitching

Without knowing the grain-bill my suggestion is to let it warm up slightly, and if the beer hasn't dropped further in a few days rouse it gently (or swirl).

[mpietropaoli]

Did that after 3 days and the krausen dropped.  Still didn't drop the gravity.  Should I pitch some champagne yeast?

[euge]

I say consider it done and don't screw around with any champagne yeast. You could try leaving it totally alone for another week or two.

[nateo]

I use wine yeast a lot in beer fermentations. All of them are poor attenuaters in wort, and all but one (1116) can't eat complex sugars at all. I'm not really sure where the idea that Champagne yeast will fix a stuck ferment came from, but it really, really won't help, unless your primary yeast miraculously ate all the complex sugars first, and you only have simple sugars remaining in your beer.

I use S-04 regularly, and you don't really want to make a starter when using it. It's better to just buy an extra pack if you need more yeast.

[mpietropaoli]

I use wine yeast a lot in beer fermentations. All of them are poor attenuaters in wort, and all but one (1116) can't eat complex sugars at all. I'm not really sure where the idea that Champagne yeast will fix a stuck ferment came from, but it really, really won't help, unless your primary yeast miraculously ate all the complex sugars first, and you only have simple sugars remaining in your beer.

I use S-04 regularly, and you don't really want to make a starter when using it. It's better to just buy an extra pack if you need more yeast.

I got the idea from Chris whites book.

What about racking to Another s-04 cake?

[nateo]

I got the idea from Chris whites book.

What about racking to Another s-04 cake?

Are you talking about Yeast? I have that book but I don't remember seeing that in there. What section was it in?

Racking onto a yeast cake is the most reliable fix, from my experience.

[mpietropaoli]

Unless I am confused, it is in the troubleshooting section.  Since I'm a big advice-asker, it could very well have been from uninformedhomebrewer.com or donttrusttheinternetforbrewingadvice.com and the experts don't recommend anything of the kind!

On the s-04 starter question, why is it not good to do a starter?  The only other thing I could think of is I had the starter in the fridge for 2 days to decant prior to pitching, but I thought it was better to have the yeast cooler than the wort instead of vice versa.

[nateo]

I'll take a look in my copy, but there is really a very narrow range in which champagne yeast would be beneficial.

Most yeasts called "Champagne" yeasts have low nutrient needs and high alcohol tolerance. If you were fermenting the entire wort with Champagne yeast, from my experience, 1.062 to 1.028 is where I'd expect a typical wine yeast would end up.

Wort is made up of a lot of different kinds of sugars, some simple (like glucose), some complex (like maltotriose), some really complex (like dextrins). All yeast used to make booze can ferment simple sugars. Some yeast (and all beer yeast) can ferment complex sugars to varying degrees, but very few yeast (like Brett) can ferment really complex sugars.

So, if your stalled ferment was due to low nutrients or high alcohol, and if there were still plenty of simple sugars left over, then Champagne yeast might nudge the gravity down a bit. Wort is typically nutrient dense, and your beer doesn't have much alcohol, and probably doesn't have many simple sugars left, so I don't think Champagne yeast would help.

I think it's more likely the ferment stalled when the yeast ran out of simple sugars and are having trouble breaking down and eating the more complex sugars.

RE: starters with dry yeast, one of the really cool things the yeast labs can do is build huge energy reserves into the dry yeast. Within the first ~30min of being rehydrated they go nuts, but their activity tapers down to "normal" shortly after that burst. So that burst of energy isn't necessary, but it helps kick off a strong ferment. Once you've gone past that 30min window, the yeast will just act like normal yeast.