Hi all, I'm A newbie that needs some serious help. I did two IPA 1 gallon all grain brew, every thing was pretty good except when I pitched, it was a round the 80's 5.5g of saf 05, 3 days nothing so I shook it up and pitched again, it's been 5 days now and the only bubbles look like white skin bubbles that don't move there's only a couple of them. Gravity is 1.120, temp is 79f and tastes like flat beer. I pitched with out a starter the recipe said not needed? My second batch is perfect it was pitched at 64f. Do I
Please repost this on the Homebrewing forum. I'm sure there are plenty of people there who could help.
It is better to pitch that yeast in the 60s, but pitching it in the 80s would not cause the problems you've described. Given your description, I think you should probably throw away the bad batch. I think it's too late to save it. That is a very high gravity, and it indicates that no fermentation has happened. Did you use yeast from the same packet for both batches of beer? If so, it's strange that the yeast worked in one batch and not the other. I think in the future you should try to find yeast that is as fresh as possible and has been stored properly. It is possible that something else is to blame, but the yeast seem like the most likely problem.
Are you sure it's not 1.012? That would be a reasonable final gravity after fermentation for an IPA. Also, unfermented wort wouldn't taste like flat beer. It would be sweeter than beer. If it really tastes like flat beer, that would be an indication that fermentation happened.
The yeast was from the same batch and the 2 new pitch from a new batch. Expiry was 09/2017. My second batch is now just dormant and crusty looking on the surface.
Then the beer was fermented. In a very small batch of beer, it is easy to miss the fermentation and assume that something has gone wrong. In this case, something may have gone wrong based on the other symptoms that you described, such as the "white skin bubbles" and the "crusty" surface. But it's a little hard to say based on your description, since even a normal, healthy fermentation may appear funky or infected to some people. (For instance, a healthy layer of foam on the top of a fermenting beer may appear infected to some people, as happened here.) In any case you could try bottling it, if you don't mind risking some wasted effort. You might find that it ends up being enjoyable to drink.
