yeast starters

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sboulton

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gday all

can some one pls help me out with some info on yeast starters ,
i have been rehydrating yeast for lagers but am becoming concerned that my rehydrated yeast is not large enough for my lagers , apparently they should be big`" starters "

1. how do you make a yeast starter?

2. how long will a starter keep ( in the fridge? ) and do you have to reactivate them prior to pitching?

3. what are some of the ingrediants you can use to "feed "the yeast and for what reason would you use them ?

cheers :chug:

simon
 
one more thing ,
i have heard that dry yeasts are not as good for making starters , liquids are , is this true , and if so ...why?
sorry for all the dumb questions :(

simon
 
Dr. Cone has some information on rehydration vs starters for dried yeast

http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...=9&t=38&hl=cone

Yes you do need more yeast for a lager. If using dried yeast, you could pitch two sachets of saflager rather than one.

I make starters with a gravity of 1.040 as I've read that this is a good level for yeast growth. For every 250ml of starter I use one ounce (around 28-29g) of dry malt extract

eg if making a 500ml starter, use 2 ounces of dme - 4 ounces for a 1 litre starter.

Boil some water, add the dme (careful not to let it burn), stirring well to dissolve - boil for a while, cool (eg. I cover the saucepan and leave in a sink of water) then add to a sanitised container (eg. I use a plastic container - could be an empty softdrink container, tupperware container). I don't use an airlock - just use some aluminium foil to keep the top covered - allows CO2 to escape. Add the yeast and shake like blazes.

I don't know how long a starter will keep in the fridge. I've left one overnight in the fridge, removed, poured off the liquid and added some fresh dme/water mix to reactivate.

I pitch after high krausen but while the yeast is still active (ie before it's eaten all the malt).

John Palmer has some good info on preparing yeast starters (www.howtobrew.com) as does Al Korzonas in his excellent work (Homebrewing volume 1). The liquid yeast websites (eg. whitelabs and wyeast) also contain some starter info.

cheers
reg
 
thanks once again reg
for coming up with the answer , i hadnt seen that other thread

cheers :)

:chug:
simon
 
I think it's always a good idea to use a starter with liquid yeast. There's plenty of discussion of how much yeast to pitch and the relationship between the gravity of the starter and the gravity of the wort into which it's to be pitched.

I'm yet to brew a lager but I've read that big starters are more important for lagers than ales (don't know why). Something to bear in mind - apparently relative temperature between lager starter and lager wort is pretty important (and moreso than with ales). It's important to have similar temperatures for both.

The main things I've read about starters (and I've found this to be confirmed in my experience) is to pitch sufficient healthy yeast into the wort and ensure that the wort is well aerated.

I don't know how important is the starter vessel. eg. some people use flasks with bungs and glass airlocks. These are very good in that you can sit the flask containing dme/water mix and airlock in a water bath - boil and let cool - condensation will form in the airlock - then you just add the yeast. I just use ordinary containers (glass or plastic) and find they work ok.

cheers
reg
 
One other thing I just remembered - have a smell and taste of the starter wort prior to pitching into your brew. It should smell good - if it smells/tastes crook then give it the flick.

cheers
reg
 
Whilst were on the subject of yeast starters :blink: . Im making a large starter for a Pils and was wondering if its ok to syphone the liquid off from the top with a hose (ie put hose in and suck)?

And do i discard all the liquid and just use the cake?

TYVM
 
Way to drag up a 7 year old thread!

It's a lot easier (and more sanitary) to just pour the majority of the beer off, leaving a small amount of liquid to swirl with the yeast to make a pourable slurry.
 
the liquid is essentially beer. so tip most of it off.
 
be careful though, a lot of yeast can remain in suspension for a long time. You want to have it chilled for quite a while to make sure you're not pouring off healthy yeast.
 
Im planning a Doppelbock and mrmalty called for a 8.72litre starter :blink:

Then it came to me - I can just buy a coopers kit from the supermarket, make it up to 10litres which should give me 1042ish, ferment out, crash cool, tip shitty coopers kit beer, and dump onto the mass yeast cake B) Perfect!
 
For ales, Im not a fan of starters for mid gravity beers, as I really like yeast character in my beers. But I do try to plan my brewing so I brew a regular gravity beer of around 1.050, and then a HG (1.080 or more!) beer using the same yeast a fortnight later,

For lagers, which I plan to start brewing soon, as the weather has turned to shit, you want a lot of yeast to kick off the fermentation with because you want to avoid the esters that will come from yeast stress and fast growth.
Also for lagers, as the yeast is slower acting at the lower temperatures, there is a greater lag time allowing for the possiblity of other yeasts and bacterias taking hold in your wort.
 
Mr malty tells me i need 2 pack in a 25L starter. Its a 51L batch of 1.048 wort.

I was planning on putting 1 pack into 3 litres, than add that to a 11L starter. Im gonna come up short anyway you look at it.

What would be the best way to use up my 1.4 Kg of malt?

TYVM
 
For ales, Im not a fan of starters for mid gravity beers, as I really like yeast character in my beers.

Not sure how to tackle this statement.

I use starters all the time in my english ales (and i rarely get above OG 1.050), maybe you need to use a strain that produces a decent whack of esters rather than relying on stress to beat it out of a less ester producing yeast strain?

Not trying to attack you SB, your statement is just confusing me.
 
Not trying to attack you SB, your statement is just confusing me.
I dont feel attacked, Im always happy to be stand errected, corrected. :)
My fave beers are without doubt, Belgian styles.
2nd to that, I enjoy the English beers, and I certainly have been under the impression, from stuff Ive read, and my own limited expreience, that lower pitching rates of any yeast leave me with more yeast armoas in the beer.
Wether these aromas are something that would slip me out of style in a comp, I can not say, but if I brew an Emglish Mild, style, say, then I prefer for the beer to have a lot of yeast character.
Do you get me?
 
Not sure how to tackle this statement.

I use starters all the time in my english ales (and i rarely get above OG 1.050), maybe you need to use a strain that produces a decent whack of esters rather than relying on stress to beat it out of a less ester producing yeast strain?

Not trying to attack you SB, your statement is just confusing me.

Putting my kneck out here, im similair, I dont build up adequate starters with pale ales, and most of the time its been fine, in fact I actually quite like the esters you can sometimes get, for example I pitched a 1L starter of 1469 into 20 litres of 1052 and the esters and stone fruit im getting of it is devine :icon_drool2: Allthough I did it once with 1026 and :icon_vomit:
 
Im planning a Doppelbock and mrmalty called for a 8.72litre starter :blink:

Then it came to me - I can just buy a coopers kit from the supermarket, make it up to 10litres which should give me 1042ish, ferment out, crash cool, tip shitty coopers kit beer, and dump onto the mass yeast cake B) Perfect!

Bit of a noob question and slight OT, but by dumping on a ....... yeast cake, does this mean using the fermenter twice without cleaning and sanitizing, or do you pour off the cake into a clean vessel?? I heard this method quoted a number of times, and I'm still stumped by it.


Regards
 
Bit of a noob question and slight OT, but by dumping on a ....... yeast cake, does this mean using the fermenter twice without cleaning and sanitizing, or do you pour off the cake into a clean vessel?? I heard this method quoted a number of times, and I'm still stumped by it.
Regards
I admit it.. Im a dirty bitch and I do this from time to time.
 
Bit of a noob question and slight OT, but by dumping on a ....... yeast cake, does this mean using the fermenter twice without cleaning and sanitizing, or do you pour off the cake into a clean vessel?? I heard this method quoted a number of times, and I'm still stumped by it.


Regards

Yes you can put your next brew straight back into the fermenter. I would only do this with the same or similar style beers.
 
Bit of a noob question and slight OT, but by dumping on a ....... yeast cake, does this mean using the fermenter twice without cleaning and sanitizing, or do you pour off the cake into a clean vessel?? I heard this method quoted a number of times, and I'm still stumped by it.


Regards

Yeah just use the same vessel without cleaning and sanitizing, as long as the first lot of 'beer' was not infected or didnt taste infected to me, ive actually done this many times even with dried yeasts even, for example, do a pale ale, pitch S-05, keg beer, dump 2nd batch onto yeast cake after kegging...

Most ive done it is 4 times in a row without any problems - the best results I had was with a lager yeast 2000 - budvar lager, I started with a Pilsner, then did an Oktoberfest, and then a Munich dunkel, and out of all three the Dunkel was the best by a long shot!
 
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