I am going to make my 1st lager next week. I have read you should make a starter so the yeast count is high enough. How long before brew day should I make it? Do you let the yeast settle and pour off the wort, or pitch the whole starter? Thanks
You can go either way, but I would suggest letting it ferment, cold crashing and decanting the beer off. You will more than likely have a large starter for a lager, so it would probably be best to not add that much extra beer into your batch.
With a lager I would definitely cold crash and decant.
Unless you have a stirplate you will need to make a huge starter.
For example a simple starter with a 1.060 lager you would need to make a 4.86L starter. That’s 1.26 gallons. You surely aren’t going to add that much liquid.
use this link to know how big a starter you will need.
http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.htmlEven with a stirplate you would need 1.82L. And those are both figured with yeast packaged today.
With yeast only a month old, you would need 6.81L simple starter. 1.79 gallons.
I made an Oktoberfest starter back in April. I made it 2 gallons and shook the carboy several times a day. After a week, I cold crashes,decanted and stepped up one more time with another 2 gallons of wort.
Granted, I was making yeast for a 10 gallon batch.
[quote=“stompwampa”]I made an Oktoberfest starter back in April. I made it 2 gallons and shook the carboy several times a day. After a week, I cold crashes,decanted and stepped up one more time with another 2 gallons of wort.
Granted, I was making yeast for a 10 gallon batch.[/quote]
You really lose a lot of growth rate by not increasing the volume of the “stepped up” starter. I think it would probably be recommended to actually double the original volume.
Here is a calculator that will give you step calculation.
http://yeastcalc.com/this one is even more spiffy.
Shows pro pitch rates:
http://www.brewersfriend.com/yeast-pitc ... alculator/