My Yeast Starter Isn't Happening

[Enerjex]

Hi all, I decided to try some yeast cultivation a couple of weeks ago with a saf US-05 to test it before going to liquid yeasts (need to cultivate to cut costs). I made a 1.5 litre starter with 150g malt extract which boiled down to around 1.3 litres. cooled it off and pitched the yeast which fired up a few hours later. after about 2 days of fermenting in a 2 litre softdrink bottle with an airlock it had a good krausen so I put it in the fridge overnight to put it to sleep before bottling it. I bottled it the next day into 4x 330ml stubbies and put it back in the fridge for storing. Two days ago I decided to wake one up for a brew this weekend. I cooked up .7 litres of water with 70g malt extract, cooled it to around 14c and poured the yeast stubbie in (had been sitting cracked for about 45 mins before pitching to warm it a little, it had a yeast cake on the bottom at least comparible to the quantity of a normal pack of saf). Once pitched I put it on the heater pad for a few hours to wake it up but so far 2 days later with it sitting at around 22 degrees (i can't bring myself to make this any higher, i usually ferment this yeast at 18 degrees) it done nothing! What have I done wrong? Cheers

 

[mika]

Not sure why you'd bother cultivating a packet yeast, but oh well.
I've found one or two of mine haven't fired, think it's due to there not being enough active yeast in the stubbies. I've found you've got to give the build-up a really good swirl before bottling to make sure there's enough yeast in suspension. What you might be thinking is yeast cake, could all be dead yeast or cr@p from the malt.

Just theorising.

 

[Enerjex]

i did give it a really good mix up before putting it in the stubbies. i know there's not much point in doing it to $4 packet yeast but i thought i'd do it and get my technique right before trying it with a $15 liquid yeast. it could be dead yeast at the bottom, i might try again and not leave it in fermentation for as long.

 

[matti]

Did you get all the yeast out of stubbie and did you aerate it a bit?
When you say pitch.
Do you mean the stubbie into starter or starter into wort.

If you mean the starter, it could mean that you missed the krausen.
It would be still ok to pitch.

If you mean the starter into the wort. It coould mean several things.
1. yeast in shock
2. Not enough starter
3. Yeast is !@%&*&

I back #1.

 

[Enerjex]

Hi, yes I gave the starter bottle a shake with the malt in it to aerate it. I pitched the stubby into the 700ml starter to wake the yeast back up. I poured half the stubby into the starter, then gave the stubby a good shake/swirl to get all the yeast cake off the bottom of hte stubby. I havent made the brew yet as I decided to wait for the starter to get going first so there is no wort involved at this stage.

 

[pint of lager]

I think it is a great idea to practise on a known yeast before you fork out money on a specialised liquid yeast.

Couple of things when working with yeast.

They never ever run to a timetable.

Often when dealing with small amounts of yeast and starters, the signs of krausen are not as obvious as with big brew size batches. Every time you walk past your starter, give it a swirl. Lots of foam and airlock activity mean things are happening. When there is too much CO2 in solution, it slows/stops yeast work. This seems to be more common in starters.

When dealing with small amounts of old yeast, use a small starter then step up (in ratios of ten.)

When dealing with the very first step, you are aiming to make things perfect for yeast multilplication, you are not making beer, so 20-25 deg C is fine.

Once things are happening, then step up to your final pitching volume and bring the temp back to perfect for that yeast.

Keep going.

 

[Enerjex]

well i just gave it a swirl and a head of foam came on the top of the mixture, there does seem to be a cake forming on the bottom of the bottle too that's a lot bigger than what i pitched. this could be malt as much as it's yeast. but is there going to be any bad consequence in me pitching this into the brew and if it doesnt fire up in 2 days pitching a fresh packet of the same yeast strain into the fermenter?

 

[danman]

whenever i culture my yeast i use a small amount of yeast nutrient aswell as LDME. ive found in my experience the yeast multiplies quicker and healthier. as pint said,start off with small amounts and gradually make the wort bigger to not stress the yeast out

cheers,dan