safale us-05

[Jammybstard]

I pitched US-05 yesterday; its the first time I've used anything other than a Nottingham or an SO4.
12g rehydrated in wort pitched into 23L, 1.060SG.

I think the piching rate was fine I got bubbles in under 90 min so I fitted a blow off tube as is standard practice with nottingham and stood back. But non of the usual fire works, just a gentle bubbling all night and still this morning. I have much more headroom in the FV than usual I dont know if this is a factor. Also the temerature of the FV has dropped overnight from 21'c to about 18' or 19' which is as I expected.

Is this typical of the strain? steady slow fermentation? I cocked the spage temperature up a bit so I'm a bit worried I've got a load of unfermentibles in there.

 

[markp]

My experience with US-05 is that it forms a nice crusty head on the top of the fermenting wort about 3/4 to 1 inch thick.
I find that compared to SO-4 or Nottingham it is not as fast a worker.....it seems to just plod away at the same rate for 7-10 days and then the head will start to drop to the bottom of the vessel.
This is in a 'standard gravity' beer....say 1040 to 1050 OG.
My 'explosive ferments' usually come when brewing higher gravaity stuff....RIS or a Belgian strong.
When I use US-05; when it has fermented out and following advice from this forum, i then transfer to a secondary and cool the beer to about 4 degrees to get as much yeast out of it as possible as it can be a bit of a pain to clear down. Then I'll use some gelatine as well
That said, I do think it is a very good yeast that really lets the hops shine through.

ETA - forgot to mention that US-05 has been described by some as an 'attenuation monster' :lol:
It seems to like to munch through everything in the wort and I've had beers finish at a very low FG......1004 and 1005 is not uncommon.
I know some people who decide on what FG they would like...say 1010....and once the beer has reached this point they then crash cool it to drop the yeast out and stop it fermenting.

 

[Jammybstard]

Well that's good to hear. I dont hav much in the way of temperature control but I've been thinking of letting it sit at about 18'C for a week or more and then slowly raising the temperature back up over 20'C gradually for a few days, this apparently helps the yeast finish and then bringing it back down to below 15'c (in my freezing bathroom)for another week to get it to clear.
I've never used gelatine before; or any finnings for that matter; I've had a 30g sachet of Youngs Beer Finnings (Water, Chitosan, Preservative) in my fridge for over a year it has no best before date or storage instructions on it. It says "Contains a product of Crustacea" on the back though which I guess means fish product, nice! where do you get gelatine from these days?

 

[Hawks]

similar experiences with US-05, its a nice clean yeast, attenuates well but always gelatine at the end to drop it out.

I get the Dr Oetkers stuff from the supermarket - think its about 90p for 6 or 8 sachets ( I add it to the wife's shopping list ) :thumb:

 

[Jammybstard]

similar experiences with US-05, its a nice clean yeast, attenuates well but always gelatine at the end to drop it out.

I get the Dr Oetkers stuff from the supermarket - think its about 90p for 6 or 8 sachets ( I add it to the wife's shopping list ) :thumb:

Ok, how do you go about using it?

 

[Hawks]

dissolve it into hot water ( not boiling, I get water from the kettle and leave it a minute). Then I simply stir gently it into the FV, pop the top back on, leave it somewhere cool and keg it nice and clear 1 or 2 days later.

If I'm short on time or have not prepared I have also added it in the bottling bucket as I keg / bottle - you get more sediment carried through, but not a problem amount and it holds well.

 

[Jammybstard]

forgot to mention that US-05 has been described by some as an 'attenuation monster' :lol:
It seems to like to munch through everything in the wort and I've had beers finish at a very low FG......1004 and 1005 is not uncommon.
I know some people who decide on what FG they would like...say 1010....and once the beer has reached this point they then crash cool it to drop the yeast out and stop it fermenting.

It's day ten today and it's still slowly bubbling, the storage heating in the flat has come on now and the fermentation room (cupboard under the stairs) has risen from 19'c to 21'c over thast few days which i suspect has kept the yeast going strong; I took a reading last night, it's gone from 1060 to 1012 which is about 6.3%ABV it tastes great; I'd quite like it to stop but I have no crash cooling and the I'm told the yeast have an important "clean up" job to do after the main ferment anyway so I would prefer to let it finish naturally. I could move it into the bathroom which is a good few degrees cooler though the temps a bit variable. any thoughts?

 

[Jammybstard]

US-05 is a monster; It stopped in the primary at 1.011 (Perfectly on target) I kegged the first 19L and transfered the three and a bit I had left into a Demijon to play with.
I thought I might take it up to an Imperial IPA so I added 50g of light DME every couple of days for a week and Dry hopped twice rousing the yeast several times a day.
This morning it had all but stopped and the temp in the demijon had dropped, I though I'd killed it but the Hydro shows it's back down to 1.011 againg! US-05 is strange; its either on or off.
So i thought I'd push my luck and try and finish it dry by adding 50g of sugar and take it up to 10% ABV. I understand this was a slightly dangerous thing to do since the yeast had dropped, I could end up with a shugary beer. But pitched the sugar and raised the temperature slowly and the head has formed again within the hour. amazing. I guess the yeast will be pretty stressed by now so I hope it's not making to many nasty falvors in there a couple of days of this, one more dry hop, fin and then bottle and into the freezing-cold un-heated bathroom for a few weeks.

If I use finnings before I bottle will I still get enough yeast to bottle condition?