Too Much Yeast?

[STStunner]

I made a 2.5 gallon batch of hard apple-pear cider tonight. I was in a hurry to go have a few Saturday night beers, so I think I added way too much yeast. After pitching it, I noticed that the label says it's for 5-gallons, so I should have only added half a pack. Is my cider going to be alright or will the extra yeast ruin the flavor?

 

[Terek]

It will be fine. It should ferment down fast. You may want to secondary it sooner than you normally would with a cider, just to get it off the excess yeast.

 

[BigFloyd]

What sort of yeast was it? Chances are good that it's not too much yeast.

 

[STStunner]

It was 11.5g of dry ale yeast. It said it's for a 5-gallon batch on the packet.

 

[oakbarn]

I add "extra" yeast to my beers all the time on purpose. Use the online Mr Malty calculator

 

[User]

As yeast are living organisms, their populations are not static. A population of yeast will double is size in the early stages of fermentation roughly every hour and a half. By the time fermentation is rolling along, the yeast population has exploded exponentially (well logistically might be more accurate). Consider that the sediment is almost entirely made of yeast.

Basically, you shortened you lag time by an hour or two at best.

 

[BigFloyd]

I've used an 11g packet of dry ale yeast in a 2.5 gallon batch of ale. It fermented just fine and didn't have an abnormal amount of yeast trub.

I think the OP will be fine, especially since cider tends to be a bit higher gravity than the average ale. My current cider (from the caramel apple hard cider thread) that's cold crashing right now was 1.068.