Normal? Never done a 2nd step before. Expected a longer lag phase. Aerated a little differently, by frothing with a sanitized spoon. Hopefully this is just what happens with the 2nd step since yeast is already revved up from first step.
A second step should get going pretty quickly, since you have active yeast. Did you do about a 5 times volume step up?
No, I did not. I used Brewers Friend calculator and from that, I used 3L starter volume for both steps. By that calculator it got me what I need, somewhere in the range of 880B cells.
Is this not the correct approach?
So you made two 3L starters? Just a suggestion for next time, why not just brew a small batch of beer and collect the yeast? Then you’d have plenty of yeast for another 2 or 3 brew days and some tasty beer from your efforts.
Well that was my original intent. But the time to brew an entire first batch just wasn’t there for me. So, at this point I just want to make sure I’ve got what I need for a 10gal pilsner
Is there a downside, as far as yeast count/quality, to making two 3L starters?
You will get more yeast growth by stepping in approximately 5X volume. If you pitch onto the same volume as the previous step you are overpitching which isn’t ideal for growth.
Out of curiosity, what were you brewing that you needed to do such a big starter?
[quote=“Belpaire”]You will get more yeast growth by stepping in approximately 5X volume. If you pitch onto the same volume as the previous step you are overpitching which isn’t ideal for growth.
[/quote]
Though this lowered growth rate should still be accounted for in the pitching calculator.
[quote=“mattnaik”][quote=“Belpaire”]You will get more yeast growth by stepping in approximately 5X volume. If you pitch onto the same volume as the previous step you are overpitching which isn’t ideal for growth.
[/quote]
Though this lowered growth rate should still be accounted for in the pitching calculator.[/quote]
The calculator does seem to account for this pretty well. The times I have to do a bigger 2 step starter are for 10 gallons of lager, sure I could do a 5 gallon batch first but there are times where I want to jump straight into 10 gallons.
