Basics Of Making And Using A Yeast Starter

[Nullnvoid]

Awesome, cheers for the help. I'll hopefully use it within a couple of months and it went into a schott bottle and I think will be clean enough.

What's the worst that could happen.

 

[Garfield]

Nice tutorial. This has been a great help in getting my WL vials up to good health (especially since they have all expired).

When you say rest at room temperature for 24 hours, would I assume you mean at the desired temperature for the strain i.e. lower than room temp for a lager yeast?

Cheers
Garfield

 

[Nullnvoid]

I've only done a couple of starters since Yob was generous enough to donate to me one of his stir plates and they have been with new yeast packets.

A few months back I got some expired yeast and it's been in the fridge and about 6 months out of date. Thought I would see how a vial of WLP001 went trying to get it cultured up, so did 500ml at 1.020 and then 1.5litre at 1.040, and now it's in the fermenter doing its thang. And boy is it doing it, I don't think I have had such an active ferment before! It's gone nuts!

I really should freeze the other yeasts I got.

My girlfriend is going to come after you soon Yob Probably not the only one too. Let's hope they don't all get together!

 

[altone]

A few months back I got some expired yeast and it's been in the fridge and about 6 months out of date. Thought I would see how a vial of WLP001 went trying to get it cultured up, so did 500ml at 1.020 and then 1.5litre at 1.040, and now it's in the fermenter doing its thang. And boy is it doing it, I don't think I have had such an active ferment before! It's gone nuts!

I really should freeze the other yeasts I got.

Yes I've had good results from extremely out of date yeast that sane people would have thrown away.
My oldest was a 1469 from 2008 - I tried 3 times without success - the 4th worked and I made a brew with it and froze 3 vials - tastes right to me.


As for Yob and the girlfriends - should I keep the missus away from him?

 

[Mardoo]

https://youtu.be/MLctf4o6feQ

 

[Nullnvoid]

I have been doing a starter. Yeast is pretty old, but have had successes previously.

Went from 500mls, 1.020 on stirplate for 36 hours, then into fridge for 24 hours

Then 1.5L, 1.040 on stirplate for 26 hours, now into fridge. Was hoping to put it in a brew tonight.

Problem is, it didn't get very active on the stirplate. It certainly did something, but I'm worried it hasn't done enough to fully ferment out.

What options do I have? I can do another step, but don't have a flask bigger than 2L. Put it in anyway and hope for the best? Stop being so stingy and buy some new yeast?

Thoughts?

 

[damoninja]

There is no need to add Safale (dry yeast) US-05 to a starter so just re-hydrate as per the instructions & all's good

So I've done a bit of googling and searching on the forum, failed to find anything definitive.

People say you don't need to make starters from dry yeasts... but isn't that assuming you're only brewing say 19L of average gravity wort? Don't tell me you should just pitch more packets for etc assume it's not an option or whatever.

What if say you had 50L of 1.050 wort but only one pack of yeast, brew shop has burnt down so you can't just buy more...

There's the economy argument either people say "dry yeast is cheap enough" or say a few hundred grams of malt extract is cheaper than another pack of the yeast you're using, even though it's dry some of them are $7.50 and it might only cost $2 worth of malt extract.

If it's a means to an end, why not?

 

[LAGERFRENZY]

What options do I have? I can do another step, but don't have a flask bigger than 2L. Put it in anyway and hope for the best? Stop being so stingy and buy some new yeast?

Thoughts?

If a free but ancient yeast fucks up a brew then it ultimately costs you. If a $5 packet of yeast makes a great brew then it pays for itself plus you get to rest easy instead of pacing the floor muttering dark oaths whilst waiting for a krausen that may never show...

 

[Camo6]

I have been doing a starter. Yeast is pretty old, but have had successes previously.

Went from 500mls, 1.020 on stirplate for 36 hours, then into fridge for 24 hours

Then 1.5L, 1.040 on stirplate for 26 hours, now into fridge. Was hoping to put it in a brew tonight.

Problem is, it didn't get very active on the stirplate. It certainly did something, but I'm worried it hasn't done enough to fully ferment out.

What options do I have? I can do another step, but don't have a flask bigger than 2L. Put it in anyway and hope for the best? Stop being so stingy and buy some new yeast?

Thoughts?

What's the OG of the brew in question? What 'something' did the starter do? Did you have krausen or visual signs of fermentation?

I freeze my yeast and tend to make my starters on the fly and like to throw science to the wind. If you've confirmed your starter is active (measuring SG, obvious krausen or taste testing), I would probably just make a 1.5l starter, add the yeast cake you have, wait until active fermentation, then pitch at high krausen.

However, if it's for a case swap, I'd buy a couple of fresh packs of suitable yeast and leave the blase approach for keg fillers.

 

[Nullnvoid]

Thanks guys. Good information.

The OG of the wort is 1.049.

There was a visible Krausen on the starter it just didn't fully explode like I'm used too (in the 5 starters I have done)

It is for a case swap so maybe I'll just bite the bullet on it.

Cheers guys.

 

[Vini2ton]

Call me old fashioned, but I always taste my starter wort. If it tasted sweet or shitty then it'd be off to plan B, a sachet or 2 of dried yeast. I've never had to do this luckily. You know, sometimes I make a starter out of dried yeast cause that's how grandpa did it.

 

[Mardoo]

Yep, always taste your starter wort, IMHO

I also test OG and FG of the starter. Most DME starters are pretty consistent with where they finish out. Yeast strain doesn't seem to make much difference, two points at most. However, if your starter ends up much lower or higher than usual, when produced under the same conditions, it gives you a clue as to whether or not something may be up.

 

[Chris79]

Great thread here, and OP!

I've read all of this thread.

My question is, if using using a can of goo to build my liquid yeast starter (WLP838) for my up coming Vienna lager, how many tea spoons (or would you weight a certain amount goo) would you use if the wort OG was under 1050? And how much would you use for a wort 1050-1060? By this time it will be a second generation yeast strain.

Cheers

 

[nosco]

Why not just use dry extract? A lot easier to use.

 

[Chris79]

As it was suggested as an option here in the OP. The idea of that appealed to me.

If it as effective for building healthy yeast, and a bit more efficient cost wise, why not?

 

[Rocker1986]

Because it's a right pain in the arse to weigh it out to the correct amount for the gravity of the starter to be where it should be. Dry malt is a lot easier to work with as nosco said. Personally I'd rather pay a tiny bit extra for the dry stuff and make the process much easier than faffing around with sticky goo just to save a couple of bucks over 6 or 7 batches.

The size of the starter and therefore the amount of extract needed for it depends on the amount of cells you're starting with, the OG of the batch and the volume of the batch. It also depends on whether or not the starter is stirred, intermittently shaken or just left sit still. Without knowing that kind of information it's impossible to even make a guess at it really. I use www.yeastcalculator.com to work out my starter sizes.

And yes, regardless of using dry or liquid extract, you should weigh it. It will be much more accurate. Using volume measurements like teaspoons or cups to measure weights makes no sense at all and I don't understand why so many people still do it.

 

[Chris79]

Fair point Nosco and Rocker!

I'll stay the path with DME, going forward.

I'm going to do a BIAB on my stove, about 16-17 finishing volume. I'm using WLP838, it will be a second generation yeast by that time. My next wort should have an OG of about 1052.

Beersmith says, 2 liquid yeast packets, and recommends a starter size of 3 litres. Under the head of Liquid yeast starter, I changed the starter size to 3 litre, and it says to use 287gm of DME. So I guess I need to make a 3 litre starter? It will be properly 2 or 3 weeks max between the current lager, and the Vienna lager.

The yeast original had a date of 16 Oct 2016. It's finishing fermentation right now. I'm not clear on what I should have enter for the viability? I am also not clear on the amount of viable cells I should have entered from the origin liquid yeast?

I'm still getting my head around this area of brewing. Thanks for the help!

 

[nosco]

Are you going to use the yeast cake off the first beer after its finished fermenting and after bottling/kegging.?

 

[Mr B]

Fair point Nosco and Rocker!

I'll stay the path with DME, going forward.

I'm going to do a BIAB on my stove, about 16-17 finishing volume. I'm using WLP838, it will be a second generation yeast by that time. My next wort should have an OG of about 1052.

Beersmith says, 2 liquid yeast packets, and recommends a starter size of 3 litres. Under the head of Liquid yeast starter, I changed the starter size to 3 litre, and it says to use 287gm of DME. So I guess I need to make a 3 litre starter? It will be properly 2 or 3 weeks max between the current lager, and the Vienna lager.

The yeast original had a date of 16 Oct 2016. It's finishing fermentation right now. I'm not clear on what I should have enter for the viability? I am also not clear on the amount of viable cells I should have entered from the origin liquid yeast?

I'm still getting my head around this area of brewing. Thanks for the help!

Although I use Beersmith, I dont use it for starters. Only because I use Brewers Friend yeast calculator.

First, you need to work out how many yeast cells you need. This depends on your batch size and OG. For example, 25l of approx 1.050 will need about 250 billion cells (dont quote me on the numbers, but its approx there).

You can then use a calculator to work out how much slurry you may need from a previous batch (sounds like you are doing this), I think Brewers Friend does this, and also I believe Mr Malty does. You would then measure (in a sanitary fashion) the amount of slurry you would need for the new batch from the prev batch, and pitch.

You could also build a starter from slurry (e.g. 1.5L 1.040 DME wort with x mls of slurry, dry yeast, or liquid yeast) to build up your required cells. Remember, you want to step up cell multiples of between 5 and 10 times (e.g. 50 bill to 250 bill etc).

2 liquid yeast packs will be 200 billion cells (100 bill each). Many people use a proportion of a pack in a starter to build the requisite cells (e.g. 25ml of liquid yeast in a 1.5l starter equals x million cells). Use a calculator, such as Brewers Friend etc for this.

Yeast viability will degrade with time. Calculators will work this out. e.g. 100 bill cells today will be x percent less next week etc. Roughly about 1 percent per day I think.

So, we can help with a bit more info if the above is not clear. Batch size and OG, and what yeast source do you want to use. If slurry, when did it finish, if a pack, what was the production date etc

Good to see you are in to it, nice work!

Cheers

 

[Chris79]

Yes Nosco, I will use the yeast cake from the Munich Helles that should be finished in the next few days (when I checked on Tuesday, six days after it started it was down to 1022). It was about 16 litres into the fermenter with an OG of 1054. So, given that it'd be maybe a fortnight after that, I was going to wash the yeast to seperate it from the trub and put it into a sanitised jar.

Mr B, think I feel the same, that I don't find the yeast calc in Beersmith super helpful - with where I'm so far.

In terms of working out many cells I need. I can tell you the following. My batch size will be about 16-17 litres, my next recipe, which I'll attach has an OG of about 1053 using WLP838.

So it sounds like what I need to do first is determine how many mls or litres of slurry I get from my previous yeast cake? Which I won't know under the Helles is finished fermenting. I'm just having a look at Brewer's friend yeast calc, I entered the original beers OG of 1054, litres 16, Target pic rate to 'pro brewer 1.5 (lager).

So I should weight the yeast slurry first shouldn't I? But how would I work out the slurry density? And the number of cells I have and then need?

Sorry, so many questions, keen to develop my understanding in this area of brewing!

Chris

View attachment vienna.pdf