BeerBorg

Hey Borg. I've made the decision to step up my process when it come to yeast. Traditionally my process has been to pitch dry or liquid yeast "straight up" as it were, directly into the cooled wort without a starter. This has worked reasonable well as far as I can tell. However, my last several batches, for whatever reason, have been very slow to start. 24 to 48 hours. This can't be good, and I'm sure is producing some off flavors. Don't know why the last several batches have been slow to start. Maybe less than fresh yeast from the store? Anyways, I've been researching and have come to the conclusion that I'm sure many of you already have, in that I need to start making yeast starters. Seems like there are many reasons to do it and the only negative is one more step in the process. Since I enjoy the process, I don't mind adding to it. If making a starter improves the flavor of your beer with less off flavors, a cleaner beer, a quicker start and a quicker/more complete fermentation, then it seems like a no brainer. Not sure why I waited so long. So it's off to the store to get a flask and some DME.

Note: how many of you make a starter. I'd be curious to know how many and why you choose to or not to.

Keep it yeasty Borg.

Just curious if you have tried re-hydrating your dry yeast before pitching to see if your results vary.
Also are you using a yeast nutrient?
Have you ever tried looking up the lot number on your yeast to see if there are known issues a/o verify date?
Have you calibrated your thermometers lately/ are your fermenting temps cool enough?
Do all the beers have the same off flavor?

Did I miss anything???

Sorry, I suffer brewers envy.

Started around springtime making starters, more to be sure I am closer to a more healthy and correct pitch rate than I was, and for the same reason of lag time being too long. Also started using Oxygen for 1-2 minutes before pitching and I am seeing good vigorous fermentation start in 8-12 hours. Also have been making starters with dry yeast when I have the time, but at the very least I re-hydrate.

I've made them for a few years and am still learning as much as I can about them. I went from a 2 to 3 to a now 5 liter flask so that I can make big starters, and save more money. One $7 vial of yeast lasts me at least 3 brews and many times 5. I've saved enough money making starters that I've spent many times more than I've saved.

I normally start about a week early as I like to cold crash mine, separate the larger starters into several jars and then cold crash, decant and pitch. The best thing for me is the control I have. I've mixed different yeasts together and now I'm trying different yeasts to see what older recipes are like.
I do everything in a flask until I separate into jars so it's super easy and takes normally takes me only 30 minutes from start to placement on the stir plate.

I've read that you shouldn't make starters with dry yeast, but I can't remember why.

Mostly, a dry yeast pack has much more cells than a standard vial of liquid yeast so a starter isn't needed but, I have read that because of the way dry yeast is made, rehydration is ok but not a starter.
Edit: I did see this from an old post by Jamil:
The dry yeast MFR already put the glycogen and sterols needed for growth in the yeast, further reducing the need for a starter, assuming you rehydrate. If you just sprinkle, some will die, but there's enough there for most batches to ferment.

bpgreen wrote:I've read that you shouldn't make starters with dry yeast, but I can't remember why.

I have read this as well B...

I was under the impression that it has to do with the drying process...

But, I am not sure why...

But I do have another theory...

And it makes sense...

While no one source or manufacturer seems to agree on the actual number of cells per gram of dry yeast, the prevailing wisdome seems to be at, about, up to or at least 20 Billion Cells per gram...

With that info, an 11g pack of ale yeast would contain somewhere around 190 Billion cells at 90% viability.

Re-hydration is recommended by a number of manufacturers, but making a starter would cause the same type of growth and multiplication phases as doing a starter with liquid yeast using a starting point of 190 billion cells for dry vs. 90-100 Billion for liquid.

Therefore, one could deduce that the resulting starter wort for dry yeast could contain as many as 400 Billion Cells or more! This could easily approach an over-pitch scenario or at the very least, could prevent a chosen yeast from exhibiting some of the ester or phenolic characteristics that the yeast strain was chosen for in the first place.

Honestly, when I use dry yeast, I generally pitch the whole 11g for ales and 22g for lagers, dry into the wort. I have re-hydrated and not noticed a difference... YMMV.

For liquid from WL or WY, I either make a 2L starter or pitch two packs or vials.

Several manufacturers and now making liquid ale yeast available that is 'right sized' for a reasonable gravity 5-6g batch of wort.

Remember to use twice as much for lager yeast.

I've been making starters for as long as I can remember at this point. For me, it never made sense to completely ignore one critical component/ingredient in the beer making process.

I use Mr Malty to determine pitch rates and if I can't make a starter then I buy enough vials to ensure a good pitch based on dates on the vials.

Whether I decant or pitch at high krausen depends on my timing but I haven't noticed a difference in doing it either way.

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If I use liquid yeast I make a starter, unless the vial is fresh and for some reason I want to underpitch (IE wheat beer where I want banana... Mr. Malty is usually good, but wheat beers where you want banana, not so much). Most often I make 800ML starters for 2.5 gallons or 1600ML starters for 5 gallons. I most often pitch the whole starter at high krausen. I try to time my starter making around when I think I can brew.

mashani wrote:If I use liquid yeast I make a starter, unless the vial is fresh and for some reason I want to underpitch (IE wheat beer where I want banana... Mr. Malty is usually good, but wheat beers where you want banana, not so much). Most often I make 800ML starters for 2.5 gallons or 1600ML starters for 5 gallons. I most often pitch the whole starter at high krausen. I try to time my starter making around when I think I can brew.

When do you generally reach high krausen? Thinking that if I start the starter the afternoon or evening before brewday, I should be good?

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Home-brewers who create wort by mashing grain ... making starters with expensive DME is unnecessary.

Starter-Wort Freedom
Once you've collected your pre-boil volume ... run-off another QT (or two)
Add your pre- and post-boil hydro-samples to it ... and voilà
Free starter-wort!

When 'starter-day' rolls around
Measure the starter-wort's SG ... dilute it -- or reduce by boiling -- to between 1.030 and 1.040.

Starter-wort remains fridgerator-fresh for at least two weeks.
If it won't be pressed into service for more than two weeks ... might could be better to freeze it.

I just made a 4 liter starter using two vials of WLP-810 last week for this past Saturday's brew day. It reached high krausen about 24-36 hours after I made it. I still wait at least 48 hours before cold crashing the starters for a day or two, I don't mind planning ahead and look at making a starter as another chance to brew something.

Ibasterd wrote:

mashani wrote:If I use liquid yeast I make a starter, unless the vial is fresh and for some reason I want to underpitch (IE wheat beer where I want banana... Mr. Malty is usually good, but wheat beers where you want banana, not so much). Most often I make 800ML starters for 2.5 gallons or 1600ML starters for 5 gallons. I most often pitch the whole starter at high krausen. I try to time my starter making around when I think I can brew.

When do you generally reach high krausen? Thinking that if I start the starter the afternoon or evening before brewday, I should be good?

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Usually between 24 and 36 hours on my stir plate. I usually make my starter the afternoon or early evening before I brew, and then brew the next evening late after the kids go to bed and all the dogs are worn out and crashed. If you are not using a stir plate and instead doing a shake it once in a while type of deal it might krausen much sooner if your not shaking it a lot. Continuous aeration extends the growth phase (which is the whole reason to do it, more happy cells to pitch).

You can do what Screwy is talking about, and cold crash it and decant off the wort at the top and then pitch the yeast slurry. If you do that you can make the starter many days in advance.

I just tend to pitch the whole thing. I will warn you that if you taste it, it will taste hideous. But it doesn't make your final product taste hideous, all of that nasty stuff will get uptaken by the yeast as fermentation goes on and the yeast is "cleaning up". And any extra oxygen left in the starter wort due to the stir plate running after fermentation starts just adds more oxygen to your beers wort, which isn't a bad thing at that point. I think the decision to decant or pitch the whole thing is whatever you like or is most convenient. If you want to make starters many days ahead of time, decanting will work great. But I seem to get less lag when I pitch the whole krausening starter, and in my Bretty house, less lag = less chance brett gets a foothold, so it's what I do. But if you make a really big starter and do not decant you might want to build that into your volume. As in I will try to get my boiled wort volume to be slightly less, so the 800ML starter brings it back up to around the target volume.

That said, what I often do is make a 1600ML starter. I will keep the stir plate going until I'm ready to pitch so it keeps the yeast all in suspension, then pitch half of it into 2.5 gallon batch. Then I will cold crash the other half, and that half I will decant and pitch into another batch. That way I get two batches out of my one vial of yeast. You can take this further, and take the half you saved, and then make another 1600ML starter out of it, then split that and do it again, and end up with enough yeast for a bunch of batches. Yee Haw, yeast rancher!

If you have a bigger flask you can make more of course. I don't like to go above 1600ML in my 2L flask because it tends to get messy with some of the yeast I use.

So truth is I do both. But if I'm just making an 800ML starter, I almost always pitch the whole thing.

Thanks for all the info. Next batch, I'll give this a go.

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Well, I went ahead and got me a stir-plate and used it on a batch of Sasquatch Slobber. Apart from some issues with the stir bar being too noisy (which have been documented here: http://beerborg.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=4957) my first yeast starter seems to be successful. After a couple previous batches where it took almost 48 hours for the yeast to kick in, this one has taken off within 4 hours. Now that's what I'm talkin bout!