Planning on brewing a kolsch this weekend using some slurry I saved about 2 months ago. I want to do a starter and have a dumb question about it. Should I pitch the whole slurry (150 ml), half? How much slurry do you guys put in your starters?
Also, I know a lot of that slurry is trub and dead cells, so I’m inclined to just use a little slurry in the starter to hopefully just get the top layer of good yeast.
I usually use a bunch though I’m not sure I’d use 150 ml. I do try to get what looks like a couple of tablespoons of good yeast and minimize the darker goo I put in. Do it far enough ahead so it can grow to the amount you need.
Just looked at my measure gizmo… For my 10 gallon batches, I use about 1/4 cup… Split into 2 fermenters… That’s approximately 50 ml… I haven’t had problems for a long time… And I try to time my starter so it’s quite active when time to pitch… Most times… Now I can start the day before and it’s very busy…
If you want to propagate a fresh vial… Then you can build up your starter over a week long adventure… Using a weak starter mixture…
Sneezles61
My MO is use it all. For a 5 gal batch I’d make a 1L starter the night before brewday and pitch it at high krauesen. For 10 I’d double it.
I used to make starters well in advance of brew day and let them finish, cold crash and decant. I’ve gotten much shorter lag times after taking the advice of some other guys here and going the “small starter, high K pitch” route.
I pitched some slurry in back to back batches over the summer and lost both of them due to a horrible ashy/plastic flavor. Never had an infection before that and never had any trouble with oxidation or anything like that.
I’ve been buying fresh yeast since with no problems so I’m a little gun shy about reusing my yeast. I need to get over it though, I’m tired of buying the same yeast and I’ve been brewing mostly lagers lately so using harvested yeast will really help me out there.
Plastic flavor usually indicates chlorine in your brew water, tannin extraction during the mash due to improper pH or phenols from warm fermentation. None of which should be attributed to bad yeast or infection really.