How Much Yeast To Pitch ?

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sab

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I have just put a lager into Secondary and collected the yeast slurry from the primary. It was a saflager w34/70 dry yeast. I want to use it in liquid form for my next brew, not for money saving , mainly to see if I get a better beer out of it and for the learning experience, Im still pretty much a newbie. I have read chillers post on yeast harvesting and am in the process of washing the yeast and topping it up with cooled boiled water. From this yeast I will collect (4) 50 ml sample jars. I want to make a starter of about 1 litre, My question is how do I go about this. Do I just use (1) 50 ml jar to make the starter and how much LDM do I use and how do I build the starter up to 1 litre.
Thanks for any help.
 
Have a read of the airlocked thread about making starters. This will give you lots of information.

When doing any yeast work, pay particular attention to sanitation.

When reusing slurry, bear in mind that yeast dies off very quickly. If using your slurry within three days of collecting, use two to three desertspoonfuls of yeast slurry to start the next brew off (no need for a starter so soon after collecting. If it is a week after collecting, use 1/4-1/3 a cup of slurry. If it is after a week, make a starter up using some of your saved slurry. Up till a month old, 1-2 teaspoons of slurry in a litre of wort, after that, use a few desertspoons of slurry. Your 50ml samples should fit somewhere into this.

For your starter wort, you want sg 1.040. This works out to be 100gms of DME in 1 litre of water.
 
pint of lager said:
For your starter wort, you want sg 1.040. This works out to be 100gms of DME in 1 litre of water.
[post="72084"][/post]​


I must admit that despite reading lots, I am still confused how to make the right amount of starters for a particular style. I make a 1L starter as mentioned from about 125ml of original portion of a slap pack after dividing the pack into about 7 portions. It seems to work fine for some Ales, although I feel 1.5L might get it going quicker. Now, how do I increase this quantity to say 1.5 L or 2L. I beleive that every addition of 1L of wort will increase the size of the colonies by 10. I am sorry, but I am a bit challanged on this as far as arithmatic is concerned.

Am I right to think that after I made my 1L starter, to up it to 1.5L just add 500 mls of worth at krausen.?

:chug:
PeterS....
 
Starter rules.

Pitch 10% for lagers, 5% for ales. So if you have an ale wort of 20 litres, you want a starter of about 1 litre. 2 litres for a lager as they multiply slower than ales and you need a larger mass of yeast to start them off correctly.

When making starters, start with a small volume and step up in units of 10. That is, if you want a final starter of 1 litre, the step prior is 100 ml, an the step before that is 10ml. This can be changed a bit. Do the first step at 50ml, the next to 400ml and the next to 2 litres.

So with your 125ml pack, you have divided it by 7, roughly 20ml per sample. Step this 20ml to 200ml, then to 1.5-2 litres. Once the samples are older, after a month or so from the original smack pack, step the 20 ml to 100 ml, then to 1 litre.

Each step occurs when your starter has just reached krausen, by making the step, at this time, you are trying to keep the yeast in the multiplication rather than alcohol making stage. Your job is to keep shaking that starter every time you go past it, and when it froths it is ready to step.

The ideal og for starter wort is actually 1.030, but usually most starters go straight into the brew, and the compromise is 1.040. So if you are going the stir plate path, you can drop the og down a bit.

Be as clean and sanitary as possible with all your yeast work.
 
I experimented with the last starter that I did & added 1/4 teaspoon of Brewcraft Nutrient Salts (the Wyeast nutrient addittive was unavailable & twice the price anyway). The starter finished up approx twice as active as usual after 24 hours & got my wort bubbling away in under 4 hours. I fairly am new to all this & am thinking of making up a stir plate when the budget allows. Is it really worth the time & effort as my starters seem to do ok the way they are. :blink: All opinions appreciated.

:beer:
 
pint of lager said:
Starter rules.


So with your 125ml pack, you have divided it by 7, roughly 20ml per sample. Step this 20ml to 200ml, then to 1.5-2 litres. Once the samples are older, after a month or so from the original smack pack, step the 20 ml to 100 ml, then to 1 litre.

[post="72112"][/post]​

Thanks POL. The trouble with me is that I am a pretty thick headed old codger when I can't even explain correctly what I did to date. My explanation I think can be read two ways. Initially, what I did was to make a starter of 1L with the total packet of a slap pack which I think is 125 ml using 100mls of DME. When this starter fermented out and floculated I than devided this into seven lots which brings it back to the original 125ml or so I thought. Is this where I am going wrong.? In any case, having gone so far, should I treat this as a 20ml sample and step it up, or can I just treat it as a 125ml sample and use 100ml of DME to make a 1L starter again from each of the stored samples? If I get to understand the answer to that, my next question would be, how much DME should I use to make a 1.5 or a 2L starter for lagers from my sample?

Thanks again POL and please bear with me...
 
When your 125ml samples are still fresh, say up to a month old you should be able to pitch this amount to a 1 litre starter. No need to pitch the whole 125ml, it is the bit of yeast slurry on the bottom you are after. Carefully pour off most of the old beer, leaving say 25-40ml, swish around to suspend the yeast, and pour into your fresh 1 litre starter wort.

As the 125ml samples get older, more of the yeast dies off and it will be necessary to do an intermediate step. Use just the yeast and pitch to a 150ml starter. When this is fermenting, pitch to a 1.5 litre starter.

The yeast as supplied by the liquid yeast companies, has been specially treated and grown under ideal conditions, so a small amount is ready to pitch. We don't have the control over nutrient levels and oxygenation that the commercial companies do.

To make 1.040 sg wort from DME and water, you need
10 gms DME and 100ml water
100gms DME and 1,000ml water (one litre)
150 gms DME and 1.5 litres water
200 gms DME and 2 litres water

Tidal Pete, the use of a good quality nutrient is an excellent idea when making starters. In theory, a good all grain brew should be a balanced meal for happy yeast, but happy parents make happy children so I always add some yeast nutrient to all my starters. I use WY yeast nutrient.

All the reports from the stir platers are good. It certainly appears to be a must have gadget for the serious yeast farmer.
 
pint of lager said:
When your 125ml samples are still fresh, say up to a month old you should be able to pitch this amount to a 1 litre starter. No need to pitch the whole 125ml, it is the bit of yeast slurry on the bottom you are after. Carefully pour off most of the old beer, leaving say 25-40ml, swish around to suspend the yeast, and pour into your fresh 1 litre starter wort.

As the 125ml samples get older, more of the yeast dies off and it will be necessary to do an intermediate step. Use just the yeast and pitch to a 150ml starter. When this is fermenting, pitch to a 1.5 litre starter.

The yeast as supplied by the liquid yeast companies, has been specially treated and grown under ideal conditions, so a small amount is ready to pitch. We don't have the control over nutrient levels and oxygenation that the commercial companies do.

To make 1.040 sg wort from DME and water, you need
10 gms DME and 100ml water
100gms DME and 1,000ml water (one litre)
150 gms DME and 1.5 litres water
200 gms DME and 2 litres water


Tidal Pete, the use of a good quality nutrient is an excellent idea when making starters. In theory, a good all grain brew should be a balanced meal for happy yeast, but happy parents make happy children so I always add some yeast nutrient to all my starters. I use WY yeast nutrient.

All the reports from the stir platers are good. It certainly appears to be a must have gadget for the serious yeast farmer.
[post="72157"][/post]​

My thanks for your reply POL. Your input in this thread has been very informative. :super:

:beer:
 
[/quote]

My thanks for your reply POL. Your input in this thread has been very informative. :super:

[/quote]

I secend that POL thank you indeed, the picture is now a lot clearer.
:beer:
PeterS....

P.S.. Sorry Tidalpete, I seems to have deleted your name by accident from the quote.
 
POL. Thanks for your help.It has cleared a few things up. I have been reading the airlocked threads but was still a bit confused over some issues.Im still a Newbie, and my brain can only take so much. So as to step this up Should I follow the same rules as you have described in your starter rules for smack packs.Cheers POL and thanks again for you informative post.

Sab.
 
hi guys,i havent anything to add to this post except to say that POL is probably the most accomodating person on this site,many answers i have recieved from POL and i must say this is someone with a lot of patience,also the answers that we get are really well detailed,once again thanks POL
CHEERS
FERGI
 
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