My First Lager Starter - Am I On The Right Track?

[Bribie G]

Now I have a lagering fridge that can hold 3 cubes I've decided to get right into it. I've had mixed results with lagers so far and guess that my problems with poor attenuation, clarity and other issues are due to the yeast struggling due to underpitching.

I've read Palmer and the BYO magazine articles and what I can glean off the forum. I appreciate that wort stepping is necessary and that stepping in too small increments can just feed the existing yeast without increasing cell numbers, and I take on board the idea that the whole wort should be chilled before pitching, etc etc. So how's this for a plan for a 3L starter for an Aussie Premium Lager:

5L HDPE cube (mini-jerry from Bunnings, same quality as a no chiller or a fermenter) - sanitized.
two sterilized 1L Schott bottles.
I don't have a stir plate but will give a good shake to oxygenate after each step.

3L Sterile Bottled water
12g repack of Swiss Hurlimann dried yeast S-189
500g LDME

• Start with 500ml of sterile water with 125g LDME and boil for a few minutes to sanitize, add to Schott, cool to about 15 degrees and pitch the packet of yeast
• At high activity, say the following evening, split between the two Schott Bottles and add a further 125 LDME and top up with sterile water to 500ml of wort in each bottle
• The next day pour both bottles into the 5L , add the remaining 250g of LDME mixed with sterile water and top the whole thing up to 3L
• Pitch into cooled wort the following day.

At 15 degrees - which I know is acceptable to this strain of lager yeast - would the 3 day time frame be feasible or should I take it cooler and for longer?

As an almost exclusive ale brewer up to now I'm sure I'll get a handle on this eventually but any advice gratefully accepted.

Cheers

:icon_cheers:

Quick edit: so as to minimise injecting the whole brew with the by products of fermenting out the 500g of LDME would it be better to let the yeast all floc out, pour off the clear liquid, wash with sterile water then just pitch the yeast 'cake' - or would this result in less viable yeast than pitching earlier in the process?

 

[mika]

3 days is a bit short to build up lager yeast, especially if done at low temps. If you go low and long, I wouldn't get too worried about pitching the whole lot, but that's a personal call.
On the last I did, I had to pick the temp up to early 20's before the damn thing took off. At that sort of temp 3-4 days is do-able, but then you'll certainly need to chuck it in the fridge, wait for it to drop clear (~day) and then decant as much as possible.
This method was with a 4L starter into a 20L batch, and even pitching at 12degs, it was showing a krausen 24hrs later.

Can't see why you wouldn't go to 5L straight away. At early 20's temps, the yeast won't have any problem getting going.

 

[jlm]

Cosidering you are using dried yeast Bribie, there's no need to make a starter (at least in my experience). It should have enough numbers and nutrients to get going without one or aeration. I've used the S-189 a few times, sometimes just sprinkled 2 packs into the wort, but usually re-hydrate as per the instructions:


Re-hydrate the dry yeast into yeast cream in a stirred vessel prior to pitching. Sprinkle the dry yeast in 10 times its own weight of sterile water or wort at 23C 3C. Once the expected weight of dry yeast is reconstituted into cream by this method (this takes about 15 to 30 minutes), maintain a gentle stirring for another 30 minutes. Then pitch the resultant cream into the fermentation vessel.

Fires up within a day no worries.

FWIW, I've found that yeast to be a lot more forgiving than the liquids I've used for lagers , always get a nice clean result and seems to need less lagering time too.

 

[Bribie G]

Thanks guys, yes I had been considering just rehydrating as I would do for, say US-05 but I keep reading about those monstrous starters. :unsure: I might go the 3 litres right off to begin with and let it breed up while I'm doing the brew and waiting for the cube to cool down and pitch on the third day and see how that goes. It will basically be the same recipe as a brew I did with the other half of the repack a couple of months ago and it seemed to struggle during the whole fermentation. Of course I suppose a good alternative would be to rehydrate and pitch both sides of the twin-pack, but I only have the 12g left.

 

[Damian44]

Do you use Mr Malty to calculate the size of the starter needed?

http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html

 

[glaab]

isn't 125g in 500ml a lot?, I use about half that. SHould I up the SG?

 

[enoch]

Thanks guys, yes I had been considering just rehydrating as I would do for, say US-05 but I keep reading about those monstrous starters. ....
Of course I suppose a good alternative would be to rehydrate and pitch both sides of the twin-pack, but I only have the 12g left.

I can certainly empathise with the lager problems. I've done hundreds of ales, porters etc over the years but only about 4-5 lagers. Of these it has been 50:50 for good versus great.
If you are trying to track down if it is pitching rate that is causing problem I would certainly pitch the two packs and not go the starter path.

 

[warra48]

Up to the last lager I brewed, I've never really had what I would call a success with lagers.

However, the latest BoPils I did, I decided to build up a 5 litre starter of WY2001 from a split of the yeast cake from a batch I did earlier this year, and to pitch just the slurry at 10C into a 10C batch.
It fermented out in just two weeks, before I racked it for lagering for 6 weeks at 2C.

It went from 1.053 to 1.006, and it's turned out to be a very clear and clean tasting lager, with absolutely no off flavours or aromas which I can distinguish.

The lesson for me for lagers is to pitch lots of yeast, pitch cold, and allow it to do it's thing in sufficient time.

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Bribie - 23-24g of dried yeast , properly re-hydrated of course. Is how much you want to use for a 23L batch of lager fermented at true lager temps. That's 400ish billion cells which = 1.5 million cells/ml/plato (assuming an OG of about 1.049)

Starters don't do much good to dry yeast, you will probably have better yeast health and viability if you just use two packs rather than a starter.

If you were going form a Wyeast smack pack or Whitelabs vial and wanted the same amount of cells - you would ideally need to make a 5L starter (if you had a stir plate) an 8L starter with intermittent (ie every time you walk past it) shaking - and an 11-12L starter with only aerating at the start -- thats not with stepping up, just straight into a big starter.

Stepping up you would go with the yeast from a finished 1.5L starter pitched into a 2.5-3 litre starter to get roughly 400billin cells.

Oh - Glabb is right. You want an OG of about 1.040 for starter wort. So about 100g of DME per litre of water.

Thirsty

 

[BjornJ]

BribieG,
this article is a long but good read;

http://www.maltosefalcons.com/tech/yeast-p...s-and-practices

It has a lot of "lab grade" information around yeast growing, why starters are important, why most homebrewers underpitch and how this relates to homebrew twang and lack of consistency between batches. Why yeast starters should stay at 20-25 degrees rather than fermentation temperatures.
She basically claims that creating starters would massively improve beer quality and consistency.

Now I am by no stretch of the imagination an expert here

But I found the article very educational as it explains from a scientific point of view the reasons behind the recommendations and relate it to homebrewing.

Some create massive starters and some use half a pack of dry yeast for a double batch, I am not claiming we need to do either to make good beer, but the argument about massive starters seems to make sense to me. She also shows an experiment where by using a stir plate you get 10-15 times the amount of yeast cells in the same volume starter compared to a starter with an airlock/alu foil lid that can not be shaken.

And if building a stir plate you get to play with a new gadget!

thanks

 

[Bribie G]

Great article, Bjorn, I'll get into that when my brain has woken up later. :icon_cheers: I know there's a thread somewhere "Cheap Arse stir Plate" but I wonder how much a kosher stir plate system costs.

 

[Supra-Jim]

No need for a kosher stir plate, though they do pop up on evilbay every now and again for around $100-$150. But you can make a simple and very effective on for about $50 (less if scavenge hard!). CHeck out the "Cheap Arse stir Plate" thread and you'll get a pretty good idea how simple they are to knock up.

Cheers SJ

 

[hazard]

BribieG,
this article is a long but good read;

http://www.maltosefalcons.com/tech/yeast-p...s-and-practices

It has a lot of "lab grade" information around yeast growing, why starters are important, why most homebrewers underpitch and how this relates to homebrew twang and lack of consistency between batches. Why yeast starters should stay at 20-25 degrees rather than fermentation temperatures.
She basically claims that creating starters would massively improve beer quality and consistency.

Now I am by no stretch of the imagination an expert here

But I found the article very educational as it explains from a scientific point of view the reasons behind the recommendations and relate it to homebrewing.

Some create massive starters and some use half a pack of dry yeast for a double batch, I am not claiming we need to do either to make good beer, but the argument about massive starters seems to make sense to me. She also shows an experiment where by using a stir plate you get 10-15 times the amount of yeast cells in the same volume starter compared to a starter with an airlock/alu foil lid that can not be shaken.

And if building a stir plate you get to play with a new gadget!

thanks

By coincidence, I got bored yesterday at work and found this same article. I read it on the train home last night and found it to be full of good information. Everyone should read it, and when you understand what idel pitching rate is, then you can understand why there are so many threads about slow/ stuck fermentation on this forum - many of us under-pitch big time. I built a stir plate a few weeks ago, and it made a big difference to may last brew. By using a larger quantity of yeast, I had a nice krausen within hours, and fermentation finished up within a few days, bang on target FG.

 

[aaronpetersen]

If you were going form a Wyeast smack pack or Whitelabs vial and wanted the same amount of cells - you would ideally need to make a 5L starter (if you had a stir plate) an 8L starter with intermittent (ie every time you walk past it) shaking - and an 11-12L starter with only aerating at the start -- thats not with stepping up, just straight into a big starter.

Stepping up you would go with the yeast from a finished 1.5L starter pitched into a 2.5-3 litre starter to get roughly 400billin cells.

Thirsty

I'm confused. Can someone please explain to me how stepping up with yeast from a 1.5L starter into a 3L starter gives the same number of cells as a single 12L starter?

 

[ledgenko]

Guys .. what I dont get is that if you have a salvaged yeats such as a coopers or a White rabbit .. how do you actually get a starter off them?? what do you use ?? a can of cheap goo ??? yeast nutrient ?? I am stuck with very few options here in WA ... no freakin liquid yeasts here at all unless I get them in from SA ..

I have a Burtons Yeast which I have rinsed and it is looking pretty good.. But I am not sure if I could just chuck it on a 23 litre ale and have success !!

If anyone is in Perth and has a libary I am more than willing to chuck a few $ at you to get a few different yeasts ...

Cheers for the advice in advance ...

Matt