Yeast Starters

[volcano]

Howdy all,
So I am starting to get more and more adventurous as to what I am prepared to try and the next item on my hit list is yeast starters.

After reading on various forums and so forth it is apparent that the strain of yeast you use has as much to do with the outcome and flavour of the beer as the rest of the ingredients.

From what I understand, a yeast starter is a series of yeast cultures that get divided up. How do you make these yeast starters? What exactly is "The Cake"? What yeast should I use to make it with?

Cheers!

 

[volcano]

Is This Page a good example of how to create and use yeast starters? (The girraween store is actually my local HBS)

 

[Doc]

Thats pretty much the destructions I used for my first starters.

Dive in and go for it.

If you are a bit scared then try practising on one of your existing beers.
Drink the beer and leave the sediment in the bottom.
Let it warm up to room temp.

Then follow the instructions you linked too.

Beers,
Doc

PS: You can also get small two part airlocks that I use for my starters, and TCB also sell the range of bungs that fit soda and juice bottles. I use either a 2.2 litre orange juice bottle or a 1.25 Pump water bottle depending on how big a starter I need.

 

[volcano]

If you are a bit scared then try practising on one of your existing beers.
Drink the beer and leave the sediment in the bottom.
Let it warm up to room temp.

I'm not quite sure what you mean here? Are you saying use this sediment instead of the liquid yeast? I have a brew that is fermenting as we speak, and will be putting it in a C/C in about a week, so I will have all the sediment/cake at the bottom of that available to me.

 

[Doc]

If you are going to use the yeast cake (the stuff left in the bottom of the fermenter at the end of fermentation) then you only need 1/3 to a 1/2 of a cup and you can use it straight away.

If you bottle it to use in the future then you will need to make a starter from it (bring it back to life).

Or you could practice making a starter from one of your current bottles of brew using the sediment in the bottom.

Consider these a dry practice run.

When you are confident with your procedure you can then do exactly the same thing on the liquid yeast you have bought from you HBS.

Beers,
Doc

 

[volcano]

I shopuld also mention that I don't have any bottles, I use kegs.
But let me see if I get this correctly now.
If I wanted to use the "yeast cake", I take about 1/3 of a cup or so, and put it in the plastic bottle as a replacement to the liquid yeast.

From there, I follow the instructions to create the starters..

 

[Doc]

Yes and No.
It is not necessary to make a starter from the yeast cake if you are to use it immediately.

However if you had bottled the yeast cake and then wanted to use it in the future then you would make a starter from it using the instructions.

HTH,
Doc

 

[jhsbaker]

How many times can you reuse yeast before it starts doing funny things?

 

[Whistlingjack]

I've heard some say up to 8 times.

But if you stress the yeast, by underpitching or not controlling temps, then you may not get good results for the next batch.

If you get any problems such as increased lag time or erratic fermentation, start fresh on the next batch.

 

[Airgead]

How many times can you reuse yeast before it starts doing funny things?

6-8 seems to be the general rule for repitching before mutations build up. This is only a general rule though. Stressed yeast (poor fermentation, undernourished, heat stress, keeping the slurry too long etc) will mutate faster.

Cheers
Dave