28 replies to this topic

[positiveContact]

assume pretty healthy yeast (plenty of it). 4L starter with 100g of DME/L of water. I usually go 48 hours but I'm thinking 36 could be enough...eta: on a stir plate!

Edited by StudsTerkel, 17 November 2011 - 04:18 AM.

[johnpreuss]

Don't go too long. You really don't want the starter to finish rather you pitch at high krausen while the yeasties are in a reproductive state so when they hit your wort they keep on reproducing, not just eat sugar.

[positiveContact]

Don't go too long. You really don't want the starter to finish rather you pitch at high krausen while the yeasties are in a reproductive state so when they hit your wort they keep on reproducing, not just eat sugar.

this starter is more of a step up but in general I ferment my starters out completely, chill, and decant most of the "beer" liquid. it's been working well for me for the past couple of years.

[SchwanzBrewer]

this starter is more of a step up but in general I ferment my starters out completely, chill, and decant most of the "beer" liquid. it's been working well for me for the past couple of years.

Might work better if you chill and decant after 24 hours when the yeast are just finishing growing, and then step it up with fresh wort.

[beach]

this starter is more of a step up but in general I ferment my starters out completely, chill, and decant most of the "beer" liquid. it's been working well for me for the past couple of years.

I do this quite often. In fact, I plan to brew a big stout Saturday and I want a big starter but I had to go to PA for a couple of days. So, just before I left for the airport I put a 2.5l starter on the stirplate (~1:30 Tues) and when I got home at midnight last night it was fermented out. It's crashing now and tomorrow afternoon I plan to decant the beer, add another 3l of wort to it and let it ride until I'm ready to pitch Saturday afternoon. Since this is going into 12 gal of Breakfast Stout (shit were those ingredients expensive!) I'm just going to pitch the whole starter.Beach

Edited by beach, 17 November 2011 - 01:07 PM.

[positiveContact]

I do this quite often. In fact, I plan to brew a big stout Saturday and I want a big starter but I had to go to PA for a couple of days. So, just before I left for the airport I put a 2.5l starter on the stirplate (~1:30 Tues) and when I got home at midnight last night it was fermented out. It's crashing now and tomorrow afternoon I plan to decant the beer, add another 3l of wort to it and let it ride until I'm ready to pitch Saturday afternoon. Since this is going into 12 gal of Breakfast Stout (shit were those ingredients expensive!) I'm just going to pitch the whole starter.Beach

why so expensive? lactose?

[djinkc]

assume pretty healthy yeast (plenty of it). 4L starter with 100g of DME/L of water. I usually go 48 hours but I'm thinking 36 could be enough... Stirplate and 100gm/Leta: on a stir plate!

Lately mine have been ready to cold crash after 24 hrs. But I plan on 72 hrs if I am dead set on a brew date. Sometimes it needs that 3 days but not very often.

Edited by djinkc, 17 November 2011 - 04:15 PM.

[beach]

why so expensive? lactose?

Actually, I just did the math. I need 28 lbs of base malt so I just bought a bag @ $.63/# so that was a good deal. I also bought a pound of citra pellets just because they were available and I picked up a bomber of Creme Brulee Stout because I've not had it so I had to take that off my receipts. With the 2 chocolates and the 2 coffees I've got ~$75 in the ingredients. A lot less than what 4 1/2 cases of the real thing would cost, but none the less, not a cheap beer.Beacheta: this will end up netting 10 gal in the keg

Edited by beach, 17 November 2011 - 06:42 PM.

[ncbeerbrewer]

I just made a starter this past weekend for my Irish Red. I used Wyeast 1084 mfg date was 11/1/11. I brewed on Sunday. Made starter Saturday 2pmActivity in starter around 4pmtook off stir plate around 8am Sunday Krausen was goneDecant and pitch into fresh Irish Red Wort at 2pmFermentation started bubbling at about 9pm

[shaggaroo]

do you guys do continuous aeration with a stone or just what is taken in by the vortex?

[djinkc]

Actually, I just did the math. I need 28 lbs of base malt so I just bought a bag @ $.63/# so that was a good deal. I also bought a pound of citra pellets just because they were available and I picked up a bomber of Creme Brulee Stout because I've not had it so I had to take that off my receipts. With the 2 chocolates and the 2 coffees I've got ~$75 in the ingredients. A lot less than what 4 1/2 cases of the real thing would cost, but none the less, not a cheap beer.Beacheta: this will end up netting 10 gal in the keg

Care to share where the Citra came from?

do you guys do continuous aeration with a stone or just what is taken in by the vortex?

Old school I guess - don't use a stone. Just the stirplate for starters and a cordless drill with a long stirrer to whip things up after I pitch. I don't want to screw around with getting O2 bottles and sanitizing the stone and hose. My stuff takes off pretty quick. I'm sure pure O2 would help but I'm content.

[beach]

Care to share where the Citra came from?

Siciliano's Market in Grand Rapids, MI. When I picked them up they had a few pounds of both pellets and cones.Beach

[djinkc]

Siciliano's Market in Grand Rapids, MI. When I picked them up they had a few pounds of both pellets and cones.Beach

Thanks

[Genesee Ted]

do you guys do continuous aeration with a stone or just what is taken in by the vortex?

Continuous aeration will kill the yeast. It is too much. The vortex will take care of the O2. I do use pure O2 after chilling and before pitching yeast though. Also, I see a few people talking about their starter "fermenting down". If that is the case YDIW. A starter is supposed to keep yeast in an aerobic state. That means reproduction, not fermentation. Yeast will only (for the sake of this discussion) ferment in an anaerobic state. If you are providing an anaerobic state to make a starter, again, YDIW.

[positiveContact]

Continuous aeration will kill the yeast. It is too much. The vortex will take care of the O2. I do use pure O2 after chilling and before pitching yeast though.Also, I see a few people talking about their starter "fermenting down". If that is the case YDIW. A starter is supposed to keep yeast in an aerobic state. That means reproduction, not fermentation. Yeast will only (for the sake of this discussion) ferment in an anaerobic state. If you are providing an anaerobic state to make a starter, again, YDIW.

since I have no way to know what stage it's in I let it finish out.

[beach]

Continuous aeration will kill the yeast. It is too much. The vortex will take care of the O2. I do use pure O2 after chilling and before pitching yeast though.Also, I see a few people talking about their starter "fermenting down". If that is the case YDIW. A starter is supposed to keep yeast in an aerobic state. That means reproduction, not fermentation. Yeast will only (for the sake of this discussion) ferment in an anaerobic state. If you are providing an anaerobic state to make a starter, again, YDIW.

What about when stepping up a starter? I don't have the capacity do make a 5l starter all at one time and I'm not doing a small batch & harvesting the yeast as a starter for my Imperial Stout tomorrow. It also becomes an issue of timing a lot of the time. If I want to brew on a Saturday but I'm going to be out of town for most of the week (which is fairly typical for me) I'll put a starter on and let it go for a day or 3. While it may not be ideal to let the starter ferment all the way out I'm also not going to buy 9 vials of yeast to get the proper pitching rate for my beer (per BS2). By doing a 2.5l starter and letting it ferment to completion, crashing, decanting and adding another 3l of starter wort I'm going to have a hell of a lot more yeasts than what I started with from a single WL vial. WIll I make good beer? I'm betting it will be really good. Will it be as good as it could have been if I'd have grown my yeast the *right way*? IDK & IDC. My guess is that I'll have signs of active fermantation within 8 hrs of pitching the starter I did *wrong*. My estimates are that I'll have somewhere in the neighborhood of 650b cells going into 12 gal of 1.086 wort. Whether those yeasts are in an aerobic, anaerobic, lag, or whatever, phase they are in , they'll get to the task at hand and make beer for me.....of course...YMMV :cheers:Beach

[Genesee Ted]

since I have no way to know what stage it's in I let it finish out.

What about when stepping up a starter? I don't have the capacity do make a 5l starter all at one time and I'm not doing a small batch & harvesting the yeast as a starter for my Imperial Stout tomorrow. It also becomes an issue of timing a lot of the time. If I want to brew on a Saturday but I'm going to be out of town for most of the week (which is fairly typical for me) I'll put a starter on and let it go for a day or 3.While it may not be ideal to let the starter ferment all the way out I'm also not going to buy 9 vials of yeast to get the proper pitching rate for my beer (per BS2). By doing a 2.5l starter and letting it ferment to completion, crashing, decanting and adding another 3l of starter wort I'm going to have a hell of a lot more yeasts than what I started with from a single WL vial. WIll I make good beer? I'm betting it will be really good. Will it be as good as it could have been if I'd have grown my yeast the *right way*? IDK & IDC. My guess is that I'll have signs of active fermantation within 8 hrs of pitching the starter I did *wrong*. My estimates are that I'll have somewhere in the neighborhood of 650b cells going into 12 gal of 1.086 wort. Whether those yeasts are in an aerobic, anaerobic, lag, or whatever, phase they are in , they'll get to the task at hand and make beer for me.....of course...YMMV :cheers:Beach

If it is on a stir plate with a foam stopper, it will stay aerobic, because of the presence of O2 to a certain point. If you don't have a stir plate, you can obviously get some O2 in there by shaking it when you make it. The yeast reproduce in the presence of O2. Once the O2 is used up by the yeast, it is a signal for them to start chomping sugar. I didn't mean to sound condescending by any means, and I am sorry if I came off that way.Check out the book Yeast: The Practical Guide to Beer Fermentation.The yeast will consume some sugar, but much more so the nutrients in the wort. If you want to step it up, just add it directly the the flask on the plate after 2 or 3 days.

[positiveContact]

If it is on a stir plate with a foam stopper, it will stay aerobic, because of the presence of O2 to a certain point. If you don't have a stir plate, you can obviously get some O2 in there by shaking it when you make it. The yeast reproduce in the presence of O2. Once the O2 is used up by the yeast, it is a signal for them to start chomping sugar. I didn't mean to sound condescending by any means, and I am sorry if I came off that way.Check out the book Yeast: The Practical Guide to Beer Fermentation.The yeast will consume some sugar, but much more so the nutrients in the wort. If you want to step it up, just add it directly the the flask on the plate after 2 or 3 days.

just to be clear - a typical practice for me is to make 2-3L of wort and pitch the yeast in. then I let the yeast do their thing for about 48 hours on the stir plate. after this I feel pretty confident that they've done all they are going to do and I throw the flask in the fridge for another 48 or so hours to get the yeast to settle to the bottom. then on brew day I decant the liquid off the top and then swirl everything up and pitch it into the wort.

[Genesee Ted]

just to be clear - a typical practice for me is to make 2-3L of wort and pitch the yeast in. then I let the yeast do their thing for about 48 hours on the stir plate. after this I feel pretty confident that they've done all they are going to do and I throw the flask in the fridge for another 48 or so hours to get the yeast to settle to the bottom. then on brew day I decant the liquid off the top and then swirl everything up and pitch it into the wort.

That sounds like a solid procedure. Next time you make one, check out OG and FG of the starter. I bet it is not as low as you might expect.

[djinkc]

I'm getting ready to decant a starter now - 24 hours on the stirplate and crashed at ~38df. I suppose they're usually not quite finished when I crash them. This one has a lot of slurry on the bottom but even at 38df there is still some yeast in suspension - I crashed it Tuesday night. And usually there is a little activity still going on when I crash it. I guess I go by color and krausen drop more than anything when deciding to crash it.

Edited by djinkc, 18 November 2011 - 09:04 AM.