General yeast starter questions...

[TheExpat]

Hi all,

So hopefully this weekend my STC1000 fridge combo will be up and running and I'll be able to put down my Coopers Fruit Salad.

I have got the yeast in 4 coopers stubbies to make little krausens and then dropped, looks like a decent amount if yeast on the bottom in each (I think!). (150mls sugar /boiled water each).

As I have now stuck them in the fridge I am confused as to whether I need to just take all four bottle out to warm to pitch temp and then just pour in all the contents of all four bottles or do I say on Thursday, drain off liquid and use the yeast to make a bigger starter? If so how much for a 21 litre batch?

Looked at MrMalty calculator, got confused!?

Thanks
Tom

 

[danestead]

You used sugar not malt or malt extract to make your starters?

You may have just made yourself a simple sugar only strain of yeast incapable of fermenting the more complex sugars in beer.

If so, id suggest getting your hands on a copy of zamils yeast book or having a look at the starters section of john palmers how to brew book which is avwilable free online.

 

[hoppy2B]

Hi Tom,

What sort of beer is a Coopers Fruit Salad? If its something with a lot of hop flavour you should probably use a different yeast, like US05.

Otherwise, you probably want a 2 litre starter with 200 grams of dry malt or similar, and give it a good 3 or 4 days to build up a good amount of yeast.

I hope that was brown sugar you used.

If it was me I would just pour the 4 stubbie starters straight into the 21 litre batch. h34r: As long as your whole batch is boiled and you have good sanitation there shouldn't be an issue. Coopers bottle yeast tends to ferment out pretty quick.

 

[AndrewF]

Hi, the way I propagate yeast from bottles is to make up about 100-200ml of starter wort from DME and dump the bottle dregs into that and then let that ferment out over about 24 hours. I'll then pour that into a 2 litres of wort to become my starter for my batch of beer. This should be a sufficient pitch of yeast for a 21 litre 1.050 batch, ale that is.

Like danestead said you shouldn't make starters with simple sugars as the yeast can lose the ability to break down maltose.

 

[TheExpat]

Ok thanks for that guys, read a bit and understand that now.

Coopers actually recommends propagating their commercial yeast and state that it works fine with just sugar! From what I have read though people tend to under pitch with just the 4 bottles of yeast.

I am not too worried as time is on my side and I have 4 un-drunk coopers in the fridge.

So my thoughts are that rather than starting again I could step up the four bottles yeast in to a LDM 2L starter and once that's chugging along I should have confirmation that attenuation is not reduced and the yeast has had a bit of malt conditioning to "practice" on consuming the malt. Once ready I can pitch that (assuming it smells fine and I have avoided infection etc).

One question - do I just pitch the 2L all in or drain off fermented wort leaving a bit, swirl and pitch the yeast remaining? Or just the whole lot? (19L of Wort and 2L of starter?)

Cheers

 

[Yob]

Looked at MrMalty calculator, got confused!?

This may help mate

LINK

 

[Yob]

One question - do I just pitch the 2L all in or drain off fermented wort leaving a bit, swirl and pitch the yeast remaining? Or just the whole lot? (19L of Wort and 2L of starter?)

Chill and decant is the best way, that way you arent pitching stale beer and crap into your fresh wort..

From somebody who has played with these methods quite a lot.. invest in a stirplate (not affiliated just very happy with the product) and a couple of flasks.. makes a hell of a difference

 

[TheExpat]

Thanks Yob, I might do that later if I want to do more of this... Or I might just buy the yeast after this. Just wanted to learn a bit fe now and the recipe is supposedly improved by using the fruity commercial coopers yeast strain.

I think on the above basis then that if I now do a step up starter with LDM I'll probably be good.

 

[TheExpat]

This may help mate

LINK

So by doing a mini starter in each bottle I am effectively resetting the viability date? And in terms of mls is that just the yeast cells collected at the bottom? I suppose if kept in sterilised water you would just measure the yeast cakes volume when fully settled?

 

[Yob]

combining into a single flask with a graduated ml increments helps to determine how much actual yeast you have.. Its what I always did anyway, that way when its all settled out you can see what you have.

 

[manticle]

Chill and decant is the best way, that way you arent pitching stale beer and crap into your fresh wort..

From somebody who has played with these methods quite a lot.. invest in a stirplate (not affiliated just very happy with the product) and a couple of flasks.. makes a hell of a difference

Growth chart.jpg

I don't think you can say it is the best way. It depends a lot on starter wort composition, volume and treatment/fermentation schedule as well as the wort being pitched to. Re-read the mr malty section on starters for examples of when active whole starters are appropriate as well as the advantages of maintaining a starter temperature close to that of wort being pitched to.
Decanting is done mostly when the starter wort is likely to contribute off flavours (estery, oxidised, high volume, etc). They don't have to so and yeast is about more than just cell numbers.

I believe oxygenation kits are probably a better investment in terms of yeast health than stir plates. Then you can get the best of both worlds.

 

[TheExpat]

As closure I ended up just pitching three stubbies of coopers yeast into the 21L wort after letting warm up from the fridge, (one stubbie smelled a little funky so chucked it).

Just bottled at 1010 and it's already lovely! Didn't make a starter in the end just reactivated four bottles and pitched 3 using sucrose. It was fine!