My First Slant

[lonte]

For the last week I have been working a yeast (WLP004 Irish Ale) up from a slant to 1L (planned 3-4L by Sunday) starter. I got the slant from the Yeast bank at BABBs and all I have to say to anyone who hasn't tried this b4 then go for it. The sight of a tiny little ferment going on in the slant with ~10ml wort is amazing and while my 100ml step was a bit unenventful (due maybe to lack of stir plate) by the time I had it up to 1L it was firng as good as any starter I've ever had. Given that you can reuse that yeast several time (i've got plans to reculture from this weekend's 50L mild to >100L of follow up ales) why not have a crack at this. It's what I love about brewing - there's always some thing new to try. M.

 

[sah]

That's a good news story lonte. I keep my yeast on slants. I put together a pictoral procedure on preparing the black slants the other day. http://scott-hamilton.blogspot.com/2006/11...st-storage.html

You mentioned the ferment happening in the slant. What exactly did you do here?

I scrape the yeast out of the slant into a erlenmeyer flask which then goes on a stir plate.

Your first step sounds like it might be a bit safer in terms of an infection control?

Cheers
Scott

 

[lonte]

I boiled up 100ml wort (10g DME) and put ~10ml into the jar that contained the slant. 36hours later it was and fermenting and tipped that back into the erlinger with the remaining 90ml for 2nd step. No stir plate so manually aerated from time to time over the next 24 hours before stepping up to 1L.

 

[sah]

I step up (double) the initial bit of wort I use within 24 hours. My following steps are usually every 12 hours depending on how yeasty the wort looks. My steps are all double or a little bit more. I don't measure I just guess.

To start with I boil up about 2L of 1.040 wort and store it in a sanitized (iodophor) 2.2L PET bottle. My final step-up is from the flask into this bottle.

The whole process takes about 4 days.

regards
Scott

 

[Voosher]

That's a good news story lonte. I keep my yeast on slants. I put together a pictoral procedure on preparing the black slants the other day. http://scott-hamilton.blogspot.com/2006/11...st-storage.html

You mentioned the ferment happening in the slant. What exactly did you do here?

I scrape the yeast out of the slant into a erlenmeyer flask which then goes on a stir plate.

Your first step sounds like it might be a bit safer in terms of an infection control?

Cheers
Scott

I'm moving in this direction so nothing constructive to add at this point.
However, I just wanted to let you know I found your pics very useful Scott.
I look forward to following further developments.
Thanks.

 

[jimmy01]

Good Morning All

I pitched my first home made slant yesterday. Seems to have started OK as there is slurry in the bottom of the flask. However there arre some white patches on the surface that are concerning me. Could this be an infection? See piccie

Yeast is White Labs Burtons Ale.

What do you think?

 

[sah]

I pitched my first home made slant yesterday. Seems to have started OK as there is slurry in the bottom of the flask. However there arre some white patches on the surface that are concerning me. Could this be an infection?

Yeast is White Labs Burtons Ale.

I don't think so. Do a smell and taste test before pitching.

Are you agitating the flask to keep the air up to the wort?

Nice yeast by the way. Its very distinctive. I've had success using it in a porter as well as bitters.

Good luck.
Scott

 

[jimmy01]

Thanks Scott

Burtons is a nice yeast. My favourite beer for this is English Pale Ale - though like you I have used it in Porters too.

probably haven't agitated it enough - so off to do it now.

Maybe Santa will bring me a stir plate. :lol:

 

[sah]

Jimmy,

It really isn't much bother to make one. Have a look at Sosman's site for some ideas http://www.brewiki.org/StirPlate and do some searching of this forum.

Here's a couple of photos of mine. I bought all the bits from Jaycar and it cost me about $30. If you wanted to you could get away with it for half that much.

As you can see its a bit dodgy but it works well and has been going strong for nearly a year now.

regards
Scott