2 replies to this topic

[consumptionjunction]

I was hoping to bank a bit of yeast from my next smack-pack. I ordered some lab glassware (the ones with the orange tops), and was thinking about doing a bigger starter than usual and distributing it between three of these 250mL containers and my beer.Here's what I worked out so far using Jamil's pitch rate calculator:For my next beer, I need about 146 billion cells of yeast. Assuming I want to save about 100 billion cells in each container, I need about 145mL of "thin" slurry. Altogether I need about 446 billion cells, which I can easily step up by making starters. My question is simple, though probably hard to answer: How do I know if my slurry is thin or thick? Typically, I chill and decant before pitching, but I have no idea how thin or thick this is. I don't mind being off a little when I divide into the containers, but I would like to make sure there's enough for my beer. If it's too thick, I'd wind up having a low pitch rate (not the end of the world) or having to use some of the slurry I intended to save.Any thoughts? Any better ways to do this that don't involve using a yeast cake from a batch of beer? (To be honest, that much manipulation and cleaning scares me.)

[ThroatwobblerMangrove]

I would think after chilling and decanting you'd be towards the "thick" side of things but you can always be a little bit conservative on this.

[Kremer]

When I chill my starter and upon decanting all the liquid pours out leaving a hockey puck slug of yeast literally in a cake I call that thick.