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Author Topic: accidentally under-pitched yeast  (Read 731 times)

Offline Sharpie

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accidentally under-pitched yeast
« on: June 17, 2020, 10:12:41 pm »
Hi, Im really new to home brewing this is only my second batch. I went and brought an IPA kit from my local store. The one I intended to buy was sold out so i brought a more expensive one. To make 23 litres (the amount I want) it said you need two kits. The guy in the store told me I could cut costs and put in 1kg of dextrose sugar instead of a second kit... so being the cheap bastard I am, I took his advice. The brew has been brewing for almost 30 hours now and I haven't seen any evidence of fermentation (bubbles). I checked my lid and fermenter is definitely air tight. I think perhaps because I only put one kit in I essentially under-pitched my yeast (as the yeast was used from the single kit rather than two) if so do you think this will be a problem? will the beer still ferment? if not then is there a way to save the brew?

plz help me :)

Offline a10t2

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Re: accidentally under-pitched yeast
« Reply #1 on: June 17, 2020, 11:46:38 pm »
I think the employee at your shop is misinformed. 1 kg of dextrose in 23 L of wort will add about 4°P/1.016 SG to your gravity, so nowhere near double. It is a cheap way to boost gravity and therefore ABV, and is used in some IPA sub-styles (West Coast in particular) as a matter of course. As far as the under-pitching, assuming it was a reasonable amount of yeast to begin with you should be just fine.
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