Hi, I should preface this by saying I'm by no means an expert on this. In fact, I've done it a grand total of once! However, it did seem to work ok as I'm sat drinking a homebrew Coopers Pale as I type
Black Devil Dog said:
Hey jimmy, I'm reculturing a CPA yeast at the moment. I used the yeast from 6 stubbies into 600ml starter with 60g DME.
Boiled for 10 min, cooled to 24 deg, pitched the yeasty dregs, fermenting at 19 deg for 5 days, (took 2 days before any visible activity). I've given it regular swirls.
This is exactly the method I used.
Few questions.
At what point do you reckon would be the best to pitch into my brew? While it's active or wait until it's done?
I waited until it was done and the krausen had died down, just to make sure I had as much yeast as possible. Although I'm sure it would work either way.
Also, do I give the starter a big swirl to get the sediment off the bottom and then tip the whole starter in?
I would put it in the fridge overnight to get all the yeast out of suspension, then pour away the wort, leaving just the yeast and a bit of wort, let it get back up to room temperature, then swirl the buggery out of it before pitching.
My starter is in a PET bottle and the sediment is sitting pretty tight on the bottom.
That's ok, it will come back into suspension with a bit of swirling. I used an old soda water bottle and thought the yeast was never going to get out of the dimply 'feet', but it did.
How long can I store the starter for?
I have heard people say a week or so in the fridge, but would use it as soon as possible to minimise chances of infection.
I'm a slightly concerned that I used too much yeasty dregness :huh: in my starter, is that possible?
Nah, all good! The more the better! The other thing you might want to consider is stepping the starter up to 1.5 litres. I just split the yeast into two soda water bottles with fresh wort.