Quick Wyeast starter question

I made a 1000mL yeast starter last night with extra light DME and a Wyeast pack. Yeast has settled out and I am about to start brewing a bourbon barrel porter. Should I be refrigerating the yeast starter right to settle it out and decant off the top part? Or just dump the whole thing in there?

It would take at least a full day of refrigeration to drop all the yeast out of suspension. I would pitch the entire starter to get all the yeast into the fermentor. This is a shaken not stirred starter? Give your starter container another swirl to make sure it is completely fermented out. If a krausen reappears the yeast is still working.

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I swirled it every couple of hours for about 5 hours and then let it set overnight. LHBS was out of stir plates. I just swirled the yeast

starter and it looks like this.

Looks like it is ready to pitch. At first I thought this could not be 1000 ml. Looks more like 500 ml or less, but then saw the 5000 on the other side of the flask.

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Yeah. I was worried about the size as well. I followed the NB instructions for it. 650 mL of water and 1/2 of DME. It’s a 2000mL flask. Figured it would go big so I could use it for 1000mL and 2000mL starters. Thanks for your advice! I was wanting to pitch the whole thing as to not lose any yeast but need some assurance that it would be fine.

I like to use a pitch rate/starter calculator. It may be no more effective than making a general sized starter but I do it to have better notes on the vigor of the fermentation and flavor development in the beer. I use this one for consistency rather than looking at two or three calculators.

I especially like the yeast viability estimation.

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The banana in the photo looks ripe too. :grinning:

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Save your money on the stirrer. Read into shaken not stirred starters. I’ve been using these exclusively for the past year and have had much better results in lag time. Or if you want… I have a stir plate for sale… :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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time for banana bread…yum

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That’s a decent size for a viability starter but could still be an underpitch depending on the target OG of the beer. I agree with @flars on building starters for the most part but I tend to overpitch quite often.

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My wife likes bananas highligher green. She makes banana bread if she forgets she has them for too long. Haha.

Any problems arise with overpitching if I just want to be certain I do enough?

So skip on the 35 dollar stirer from my LHBS and just give it a swirl every so often for a couple of hours?

The general consensus among home brewers is no. Better to overpitch than underpitch.

I’m a shaken not stirred starter maker too. Most of my starters are made in 2 gallon plastic water jugs that wouldn’t work on a stir plate.

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Not even that. Boil your starter wort. Cool and pour into a 1-2gal jug. Put a lid on it and shake it u tail completely foam. Pitch yeast and leave alone. Try to do this 12-18 hours before brewing so you pitch at high krausen.

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Shaken not stirred… Ive not used a pitch gonk-U-later… The best advice I will relate, pitch when its active… It will take a few tries to find that time… You’ll be well rewarded! Sneezles61

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Shaken not stirred here too.

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Get out the KC and the Sunshine record… Thats the way, uh huh, I like it! :sunglasses: Sneezles61
PS, quick, cover it up!