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Fermentation with blow off, did I lose any yeast?

Johnh3nry

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I have a concern about my latest batch that is currently in day 4 of primary fermentation. I had to insert a blow off tube to my airlock after the first day of fermentation. After a few days of very vigorous activity, I replaced the tube with another airlock. When I emptied the pot where the tube was below the water line I noticed about an inch layer of yeast. I've never seen that much yeast blow off water before. As of today, the fermentation seems to be continuing, but I'm worried that I have too little yeast left in the fermenter for a proper job. This is a 5 gallon batch with OG at 1048. I pitched Wyeast 1332 (Northwest Pale Ale) and did a 24 hour starter on a stir plate with about 1 cup of DME and 4 cups of water.

Any advice? I'm wondering if I need to add a package of dry yeast.
 
It makes me sad to see all that beautiful, high krausen, yeast dead in my container of blow-off sanitizer.


This is normal.  In the past and still today, blow-off yeast is used to prime fermentation for the next batch.  After 4 days nearly all the fermentation is done.  Maybe all of it.  You should take care to prevent any contamination at this point.  Adding more yeast is ill-advised, unnecessary and risks contamination. 
 
Sounds like you had a vigorous fermentation. As long as the brew is cloudy, there's plenty of yeast in it. If it isn't cloudy, then the yeast is settling out because it ate all the sugar. You're doing everything right. Don't mess with it.  It's fine.
 
Actually you want all of that blow off out of your fermenter. I always run my blow off tube into a bucket of water with some bleach, which is an effective air lock. After a couple of days you can use your normal airlock. BTW if you're not using lab quality yeast,you're setting yourself up for failure. Make a little weak solution of DME with some distilled water and put it in a sterile beer bottle with an airlock. Pitch your yeast into this until you have good activity and then pitch that to your five gallons of wort. A long lag time by under pitching is creating a medium for other pathogens to compete for the nutrients. Also many people switch carboys after a couple of days to achieve secondary fermentation. I'm not an advocate of that. The longer the beer stays on the yeast bed the better off you are. Diacetyl that is part of the fermentation process is mitigated by leaving the beer on the yeast bed to quite an extent.I like to let my carboy sit until the beer clears all the way down to the yeast bed. Then you can rack it into your keg or your bottles as a secondary will finish there. Using a long spoon, you can remove some yeast from the middle of that bed and put it in a sterile jar and cover it with some of the beer and it will keep in the fridge until your next batch.
 
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