Wyeast2206 Slow To Swelll

[bcp]

Doing my first lager - Samuel Adams Boston Lager style - which is in my no chill cube. OG 1.052, 24 litres.

But the smack pack is a little slow to get going.

• Wyeast2206 Bavarian, Feb2010, been in my fridge for 2 months
• 24 hours now, and only half swollen - slow by my experience, but it is cooler inside than the others i've used (b/w15-18celcius)
• I fly out of the country at midday on Wednesday, so need to be organised by then (about 42 hours i think before i go)
• I'm a long way from G&G to get another pack if it's not viable

So... do i make a 1 litre starter now and pitch it in the starter as is? How long will the starter take? I can't remember!
Do i wait a little longer until it's swollen and then make a starter?

Mr Malty says i need 5 litres of starter. Seriously? If so i'm not sure i'll have time to build it up.

Advice?

 

[cdbrown]

Only advice I can give is to shake the packet as often as you can and leave it in a warmish area. Not done any lager smack packs though.

 

[Sammus]

for 24L at 1.052 I'd want to make at least a 5L starter But that's me, and I'd also be cold pitching, and probably spend more time preparing the starter than I would the actual wort...but I digress, I think you will still do fine with what you have.

At this stage I'd want to warm it up. In my experience smack packs swelling and making starters etc doesnt happen quickly when the temp is that low. Ideally you'd want the starter to be working in the low to mid 20s for optimal yeast growth, then crash chill for a couple days and decant the warm fermented crap off the top before pitching. Obviously that isn't an option here.

Considering your time constraints etc, I'd say pitch it into your starter now and then chuck the starter in the wort at the last minute. If the pack is swollen at all then there's some viable stuff in there. Pitch into your starter at room temp, if it sits at 16C or something it may be a little warmer than you want to ferment lagers normally, but wont be so bad as to give you terrible off flavours in your starter, so you wont have to mess around with crash chilling to separate the yeast from the other stuff.

That's my 2c anyway

 

[losp]

in my experience with wyeasts, a good rule is half a day for every month old the packet is, so maybe just hang tight.

Doing my first lager - Samuel Adams Boston Lager style - which is in my no chill cube. OG 1.052, 24 litres.

But the smack pack is a little slow to get going.

• Wyeast2206 Bavarian, Feb2010, been in my fridge for 2 months
• 24 hours now, and only half swollen - slow by my experience, but it is cooler inside than the others i've used (b/w15-18celcius)
• I fly out of the country at midday on Wednesday, so need to be organised by then (about 42 hours i think before i go)
• I'm a long way from G&G to get another pack if it's not viable

So... do i make a 1 litre starter now and pitch it in the starter as is? How long will the starter take? I can't remember!
Do i wait a little longer until it's swollen and then make a starter?

Mr Malty says i need 5 litres of starter. Seriously? If so i'm not sure i'll have time to build it up.

Advice?

 

[Fourstar]

BCP,

With the time you have, swing by G&G and get another packet and pitch both of them together. Even with the singe pack and a day on a stirplate you might struggle to get the correctpitching rates for a lager anyway, atleast with two packs you will be close to correct pitching rates + with fresh and healthy yeast from a close to new pack. :icon_cheers:

oh with the one smack pack, you would need a 2L starter w/a stirplate for 16 hours (minimum), or 5-6L without one and no shaking (couple of days).

 

[jacknohe]

in my experience with wyeasts, a good rule is half a day for every month old the packet is, so maybe just hang tight.

Yes, I had got similar advice from Ross (CraftBrewer) when my Wyeast 2007 was a little slow. I say "slow" when comparing it to the Wyeast Thames Valley smackpack that I took out of the fridge, got it to room temperature (20c-ish) and the bag had expanded within the 3-4 hours as described on the packet.

I Naively thought the Wyeast Pilsen-Lager (2007) yeast would react the same. According to Ross, up to one day per month after manufacturing date. EDIT: For Wyeast Lager smackpacks.

As side topic but in line with the questions regarding the size of the starter, if I add a 2L (or more) starter to a brew, do I count it as part of the total brew volume. E.g. I want to ferment 23L of beer but I add 2L of starter, that makes 25L of liquid. Do I adjust my IBUs to then actually fit 25L as opposed to 23L?

I suppose 2L may not make as much of a difference but its close to 10%. 5L would affect it much more obviously.

Or is another approach to mash/extract a 23L batch, then draw off 2L of it to use for the starter and then add it back into the fermenter once yeast has started.

Am I making sense or am I losing it?

 

[bcp]

Given my time constraints i took fourstar's advice & bought a second packet. I did read on the wyeast pack (i almost never read the details until i get stuck) that you don't need it to be fully swollen to be sure the yeast is viable.

Yes, I had got similar advice from Ross (CraftBrewer) when my Wyeast 2007 was a little slow. I say "slow" when comparing it to the Wyeast Thames Valley smackpack that I took out of the fridge, got it to room temperature (20c-ish) and the bag had expanded within the 3-4 hours as described on the packet.

I Naively thought the Wyeast Pilsen-Lager (2007) yeast would react the same. According to Ross, up to one day per month after manufacturing date.

As side topic but in line with the questions regarding the size of the starter, if I add a 2L (or more) starter to a brew, do I count it as part of the total brew volume. E.g. I want to ferment 23L of beer but I add 2L of starter, that makes 25L of liquid. Do I adjust my IBUs to then actually fit 25L as opposed to 23L?

I suppose 2L may not make as much of a difference but its close to 10%. 5L would affect it much more obviously.

Or is another approach to mash/extract a 23L batch, then draw off 2L of it to use for the starter and then add it back into the fermenter once yeast has started.

Am I making sense or am I losing it?

I'm still getting my head around starters, but I noticed many drain off the 'starter' wort and just pitch the yeast, because otherwise you're throwing your flavours very slightly off-balance with an unreciped addition.

So drawing off 2l for the starter makes a lot of sense to me.

 

[manticle]

One of the main reasons people throw away the top wort is because they ferment their starters quickly with high temps and agitation. The resulting esters and oxidation is left behind.

However from what I've read there seems to be two processes that often get confused. A starter is active yeast and should be pitched at high krausen. I treat my starters as I treat my beer - no stirring once krausen appears and keep the temps down. The whole lot gets opicthed when it looks active.

Then there is also stepping up which is encouraging the yeast cells to multiply. The wort is then allowed to fully ferment before either being used, stored or built up again with more wort.

I tend to combine these processes - if I'm stepping up, I still keep temps down and don't agitate once krausen appears. When I've brought the cell count up enough I let the last step reach good krausen then pitch the lot. As I think I mentioned to you, if I do this with a no chill beer then the to be fermented beer is slowly introduced to the step/starter so that it is already familiar with the profile. Very unscientific but makes sense to me and seems to work. One of the great things about no-chill is you can wait till your yeast is really firing in the right amount before pitching.

Obviously with a plane to catch you have less options. Two packs seems expensive but make sure you reharvest and the price will drop (also you'll have yeast on hand).