Hello to anyone that uses a 3000mL flask for there yeast starter. My question is how tall is a 3000ml flask compared to a 5000mL flask. The only complaint I have about my 5L flask is when it come time to cold crash the starter the 5L flask are just to big to fit into refrigerator’s
3000 way smaller. Me got a 2000 ml flask. They way i do before cold crash. I transfer my yeast starter. To a mason jar. This fits perfect in your fridge. And it gives me time to start a second starter
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Flasks are useful in a lab I suppose. I use Mason jars. Much easier to store
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I like my gallon carboy for starters.
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Just be careful if you’re pouring hot liquid in it. I use a 1 1/2 gallon Mason jar or a 3gal fermentation bucket. Usually if Im building up a new yeast I’ll make a 2-3 gallon small beer and save the slurry and bottle up the beer.
I had a 1000 and found it was a little small so I bought a 2000 flask. Got them because you could boil in them then toss in an ice bath to cool. Then I read that repeatedly doing that can stress the glass and some day it will shatter.
So much for the flasks. Now I’m back to boiling the extract in a sauce pan or kettle and chilling then pouring into whatever fits the size starter. Sometimes its a wine carafe, sometimes a five gallon carboy.
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I use 1 gal glass or 2 gallon plastic water jugs for starters.
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Don’t see why more people don’t do that just make your starter in a fermentation vessel and rack your wort onto it. Makes sense to me.
If I’m using a carboy for a starter it’s usually to make enough for 20 gallons of wort. Never thought of using a 6.5 and just leaving enough in that so it’s one of the fermenters after pouring some into the others. It’s usually my 12 gallon conical and two carboys, buckets or a combination.
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After breaking 2 erlehmeyer flasks a few years ago, now I just use 1qt mason jars.
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Cheap too
I do use a sauspan on the stove. Once my wort done. Transfer to flask. Cool down pitch yeast and use of stirplate. Me afraid to use my flask on the stove. Once starter done. Transfer to fridge. And cold crash. I like to make my starters few days before brewing day. Use mason jars for storage my yeast starters in the fridge
If you’re go to use a flask get a Bunsen burner otherwise what’s the point?
If you’re worried about your flask breaking while on the stove place the flask in a bigger pot of water and boil them at the same time. This will prevent the heat from shattering the flask.
I was more concerned with putting the flask into an ice bath right from the boil. I was under the impression they were tempered so they could go right from hot to cold and vice versa.
RDWHAHB Sneezles61
They can. High quality lab glass can anyway.
I agree the old school ones we used in chemistry lab could take the ice bath when hot but the cheap ones who knows.
I’ve, perhaps naively, been jumping from my stove top burner to ice bath without issue.
If it’s a borosilicate flask I don’t think there’s anything to worry about. It should handle the temperature changes without issue.
