Yeast Starter

skoobakream · December 29, 2013, 7:48pm

I am about to brew tonight with my first yeast starter which I prepared last night. I am going to do the caribou slobber extra which has an O.G of 1.052. I had prepared a 1.5 liter of starter from a smackpack, but just checked beer smith today and it said that since I am using a stir plate, that I should only need a 0.7L starter. should I just add the full 1.5L starter or will the extra cause off flavors? Should I decant it and add the 0.7L or just split the starter and save the rest?

Thanks for your help!!

gdtechvw · December 29, 2013, 10:43pm

Just pitch the whole thing.

flars · December 30, 2013, 2:56pm

You most likely have brewed and pitched your yeast starter so this is for future brews.

Allow two days for your starter to complete on the stir plate. Allow an extra three days before your brew to refrigerate the starter to settle the yeast to the bottom of your container.

On brew day warm the cold crashed starter room temperature. Just before you are ready to pitch decant most of the clear wort that is on top of the yeast, leaving a cup or so of the wort.
Swirl the yeast into the remaining wort and pitch.

Decanting most of the starter wort will negate worries of off flavors.

dobe12 · December 30, 2013, 3:09pm

[quote=“flars”]You most likely have brewed and pitched your yeast starter so this is for future brews.

Allow two days for your starter to complete on the stir plate. Allow an extra three days before your brew to refrigerate the starter to settle the yeast to the bottom of your container.

On brew day warm the cold crashed starter room temperature. Just before you are ready to pitch decant most of the clear wort that is on top of the yeast, leaving a cup or so of the wort.
Swirl the yeast into the remaining wort and pitch.

Decanting most of the starter wort will negate worries of off flavors.[/quote]

Very sound advice, but just a few points from my experience… the yeast’s age and size of starter will determine how long it needs to ferment. I’ve had small starters with very fresh yeast ferment out in well under 24hrs. I’ve also had older yeast take 48hrs to start and another 48 to finish. These numbers aren’t set in stone and are very fluid.

Yeast strain will determine how long you need to cold crash. A wheat yeast like Wyeast 3068 can take upwards of a week or longer to drop most out of suspension and even then, the starter will still be cloudy with yeast. On the other hand Wyeast 1968 ESB flocculates so quick it clumps up while on the stir plate. This yeast needs little to no time to flocculate. For smaller starters 1L or smaller, I will usually just pitch the whole thing, skipping the cold crashing step.

Warming the starter on brew day is unnecessary. You can just decant and pitch it right into your wort. It will warm up and go to work without any issues.

Again, not saying what you wrote is wrong. I’m simply giving my input from my experiences.

flars · December 30, 2013, 3:23pm

You are correct. Thank you for the additional information for skoobakream and others. I’ll add WY3711 is another yeast that takes a long time to settle. Perhaps the best advice for new brewers is to plan the starter two weeks in advance of brew day. Two weeks in the frig will not cause sufficient loss of viability to worry about.
How many of us home brewers can plan a brew day two weeks in advance?

dobe12 · December 30, 2013, 3:42pm

If only…

I’ve started doing a few things to cut down on time spent making starters, cold crashing, etc. First, I’ve started buying 2 packs of yeast when needed. On New Year’s Day I’m making a Weizenbock, somewhere around 1.080. So, instead of making a big a$$ starter I decided to buy 2 packs of yeast and make a 1L starter which yeastcalc tells me is perfect. I’ll make the starter tomorrow afternoon and pitch the whole thing 24hrs later.

I also collect yeast slurry in 1qrt mason jars. In the past I would rinse yeast, but found it was very time consuming and not the healthiest process for the yeast. Saving slurry under beer as opposed to water is much better for the yeast in terms of PH and possible contamination.

Another thing I try to do is plan consecutive beers using the same yeast strain. I’ll make a lower gravity Patersbeir or Belgian Blonde, harvest the slurry and use that to brew a Belgian Tripel. If the collected slurry is only a few weeks old (which I try to plan brew days around this schedule) I don’t even bother with a starter. I just dump a whole jar of yeast slurry in the new beer (depending on the OG of course).

jmck · December 30, 2013, 5:39pm

[quote=“dobe12”]
Another thing I try to do is plan consecutive beers using the same yeast strain. I’ll make a lower gravity Patersbeir or Belgian Blonde, harvest the slurry and use that to brew a Belgian Tripel. If the collected slurry is only a few weeks old (which I try to plan brew days around this schedule) I don’t even bother with a starter. I just dump a whole jar of yeast slurry in the new beer (depending on the OG of course).[/quote]
+1 to this. My tripel using this exact process is now 4-days old, and just passing high krausen. The patersbier is sitting next to it in secondary. It was beautiful watching the tripel take off using “free” yeast. Trippels can be a bit pricy, so knocking $6-$12 off the yeast cost is significant.

dobe12 · December 30, 2013, 5:56pm

[quote=“JMcK”][quote=“dobe12”]
Another thing I try to do is plan consecutive beers using the same yeast strain. I’ll make a lower gravity Patersbeir or Belgian Blonde, harvest the slurry and use that to brew a Belgian Tripel. If the collected slurry is only a few weeks old (which I try to plan brew days around this schedule) I don’t even bother with a starter. I just dump a whole jar of yeast slurry in the new beer (depending on the OG of course).[/quote]
+1 to this. My tripel using this exact process is now 4-days old, and just passing high krausen. The patersbier is sitting next to it in secondary. It was beautiful watching the tripel take off using “free” yeast. Trippels can be a bit pricy, so knocking $6-$12 off the yeast cost is significant.[/quote]

Been drinking my Patersbeir for a few weeks now and it’s damn tasty. I just checked the gravity on my Tripel for the first time (brewed 3 weeks ago). Went from 1.095 to 1.008! 11.4% ABV… gonna let this one sit a while.