I'm about to brew this weekend and for that I've tried to make a starter for the first time. Yeast was a bit old, Nov 28, and needed a starter according to the yeast/pitch calculator. I only made a small starter, 0.5 liter (=0.13 gallons as I understand it) since that was the size of the flask I had available, but it should be sufficient. The yeast is Wyeast 1098 British Ale. I made a stirplate for it to sit on.

However, I had imagined more activity in the flask than it seems to be, now 24 hours into fermentation. I was initially afraid the dead space in the flask wouldn't be enough and that yeast activity would make the kräusen to overfill. This is what it looks like though at the moment, 24 hours in:


Is this what to expect? Does it look as it should?

I will let it sit on the stirplate until pitching time, which probably will be on sunday. That means 72 hours from start...the instruction i read said 48 hours. Does it matter?

And finally, when I smacked the smack pack, and when I shook it, I heard this fizzing sound inside it. This is only the second time I'm using liquid yeast but I don't recal hearing any fizzing on the first one. Is this normal behavior? Does it differs from strain to strain?

 

Thank you! So what are you suggesting? Should I wait and see? I used this malt for starter, not sure if that matters for the ending color.

 

This morning I thought it had turned somewhat creamy colored and was without the foam. I took it off the story plate and let it sit for an hour, and now it looks like this


I suppose the sediment at the bottom is the yeast?

What do you think, is this good to use or should I use my backup dry yeast ?

Another thing on this subject, by a coincidence I yesterday evening reached the chapter on Palmers How to Brew where he mentions stir plates. He writes that the flask shouldn't go directly from the stir plate to the refrigerator, if one intended to, but should sit in the ambient temperature for the same time it sat on the stir plate before putting it into the cold. I can't recall seeing this mentioned in any other instructions I've read. What's the normal procedure here?

 

Brew day tomorrow, I'll let the little yeastie boys (and girls) know you all have faith in them...

 

I probably won't be using the starter, now this morning when I'm looking at it in the refrigerator it seems like it won't be enough yeast. In the pic above it looks like it could be about 100ml of yeast but now it looks less, and according to the yeast calculator I need at least 100 billion cells.

 

Sigh....not sure what I will do yet, just started the mash
But yes I definitely will get a bigger flask!

 

This is what it looks like now... don't know why it seems like it's less yeast as previous pic

 

Shaking flask before pitching... it looks like this. Good or bad?

 

So, I ended up using the starter anyway. Was first time doing one, and had no idea what to expect and whether the starter looked useable or not. But there's a first time for everything, and I learned a couple of things. The coming days will show if the yeast was viable enough.

For my next brew though I've decided to do things simple. Will make a SMaSH and hopefully it won't generate too many questions I've been experimenting too much and I need a simple and successful brew.