Yeast starters

[Buxton]

Hi All, I have a stupid question.

I’ve been merrily brewing 25-27litre batches with mixed success. I’ve chucked a few batches I suspect down to infections getting in. I think the reason for these infections are either cleanliness of the spigot (I’m now much better) or pH (I now buffer with lactic acid to about 6).

However, I’ve been using one smack pack of yeast per batch and I think I’m under pitching. I use a Wyeast 1056 to brew a 1.050 Pale Ale. That’s about 100bil cells. From my calculations I reckon I need 230bil cells. So I mixed 193g DME with 2litres of boiling water and I boiled it for 15mins and added it to a sterile demijohn and cooled it before adding my smack pack. I planned to shake it every few hours and keep it dark.

Can someone confirm I’ve done the right thing and my maths is correct? I (wrongly) hoped I could do 2 batches at the same time but I’ve realised I will need twice the amount of yeast so unless I do another starter from the first and wait an additional 24 hours, I guess this isn’t possible?!

 

[Minbari]

That is pretty much how it is done. If you want to make it work even better, get a stir plate. Only like $35 on Amazon and will continuously agitate and oxiginate.
Do make sure you sterilze the beaker you put the starter in. I ussuslly just boil it in a 2L erlimeyer flask and use that for the starter. Also make sure you cover it. I use sanitized tin foil

 

[Mark Farrall]

I'd be doing a starter for that batch size/gravity. And that's pretty much what I do for my starters, though I don't worry about the dark place. Light is mainly a problem for a beer with hops that you're going to drink.

A faster start and stronger fermentation will reduce the chances of an infection a little, but I'd be thinking about the cleaning/sanitising side of things long before I started thinking about pH or pitch rates. Though I'm not sure if you were actually linking the two. Probably weren't.

 

[Ward Chillington]

+1 on that Mark! Check out You Tube for some good instruction ...White Labs comes to mind and I recommend checking out many of them so to come up with your own methods! Also,,here on the BF site is the pitch calculator which will help you out.

WRT cleaning...what are you fermenting in?

 

[Buxton]

+1 on that Mark! Check out You Tube for some good instruction ...White Labs comes to mind and I recommend checking out many of them so to come up with your own methods! Also,,here on the BF site is the pitch calculator which will help you out.

WRT cleaning...what are you fermenting in?

thanks for this. I used that calculator actually. I just wanted to make sure I hadn’t done something stupid.

I ferment the beer in fermenting buckets with a spigot tap. I generally clean them out with hot water and soap, then rinse well and then sterilise. I take the spigot out and wash it a leave it to soak in sanitiser. I’m not sure what else I can do. Unless there is a chance the vessels just get infected to the extent that you can’t really clean it.

my theory for why pH and pitch rate may have an effect on infection is that the resulting beer is not foul smelling. It kind of smells weird and not nice but it isn’t rank. I’ve had one or two batches that are clearly disgusting. I figured that if my yeast was stressed or unable to multiply quick enough to outcompete a contaminant yeast, you’d sort of get a co fermentation that would cause a fail.

 

[Buxton]

The other thing on the BF yeast starter calculator is that it doesn’t say how long it takes. I was assuming 24 hours (ish).

on that basis though, I am going to struggle to do 2 batches this evening arent I? The calculator suggests I will have about 240Bil cells which is just over what I need for 1 batch of 25 litres.

 

[Buxton]

It also gets me thinking about my next batch where I want to make a Bock lager. I have an American lager yeast smack pack containing 100Bil cells. I will be making about 25litres so the BF calculator suggests I need 294Bil cells. That means I need 3.4 litres of culture medium to grow that many cells from a 2 wk old smack pack so it will presumably take 48-72 hrs?

wort target is 1.064.

many thanks,

 

[Minbari]

The other thing on the BF yeast starter calculator is that it doesn’t say how long it takes. I was assuming 24 hours (ish).
on that basis though, I am going to struggle to do 2 batches this evening arent I? The calculator suggests I will have about 240Bil cells which is just over what I need for 1 batch of 25 litres.

I usualy do my starters for 48 hours. Really doesn't hurt anything to go a bit too long. When the yeast is done, it's done

 

[Minbari]

It also gets me thinking about my next batch where I want to make a Bock lager. I have an American lager yeast smack pack containing 100Bil cells. I will be making about 25litres so the BF calculator suggests I need 294Bil cells. That means I need 3.4 litres of culture medium to grow that many cells from a 2 wk old smack pack so it will presumably take 48-72 hrs?

wort target is 1.064.

many thanks,

I would do a 2 stage starter, should be able to push up to that level.

294B cells seems light to me for a lager of that size though

 

[Donoroto]

You use smack packs, as do I for certain recipes. Are you oxygenating your wort prior to pitching? Liquid yeast needs that. As will any yeast multiplied with a starter.

 

[GFHomebrew]

I did a bit of a step by step starter prep thing in the beginners brew section on here if you wanna check it out. Maybe a how not too lol but you may learn something...

 

[GFHomebrew]

Here it tis.
https://www.brewersfriend.com/forum/threads/making-a-yeast-starter.14530/

 

[Buxton]

I did a bit of a step by step starter prep thing in the beginners brew section on here if you wanna check it out. Maybe a how not too lol but you may learn something...

thank you for the link, it is great. I’ve done most of this but I did use DME and diluted it as suggested by the BF calculator.

I did a 500ml starter from a Smack pack yesterday of Budvar 2000. No stir plate so I just agitated it every time I thought about it. It looked good this morning (something like this)..



so I pitched it into 3.4litres of DME/water (boiled) mix this morning. It has been going for about 6hrs and looks like this....

 

[Buxton]

thank you for the link, it is great. I’ve done most of this but I did use DME and diluted it as suggested by the BF calculator.

I did a 500ml starter from a Smack pack yesterday of Budvar 2000. No stir plate so I just agitated it every time I thought about it. It looked good this morning (something like this)..



so I pitched it into 3.4litres of DME/water (boiled) mix this morning. It has been going for about 6hrs and looks like this....

I can’t see me being able to brew a lager with this starter tomorrow (it is lunchtime Friday right now). I think it will be Sunday at least. Does that figure? I want to do a 25 litre batch.

On the plus side, I pitched some of yesterday’s starter of Wyeast 1056 into 500ml of media and it looks great today. I will wait until tomorrow and will cool and store it for next week.

 

[Donoroto]

That flask looks great, the gallon bottle not as much; but it often takes a bit longer for the yeasties to ramp up to bigger starters, at least in my experience, definitely more than 6 hours so don't fret! It'll go soon enough.

Maybe tomorrow morning. Sunday for sure.

 

[GFHomebrew]

thank you for the link, it is great. I’ve done most of this but I did use DME and diluted it as suggested by the BF calculator.

I did a 500ml starter from a Smack pack yesterday of Budvar 2000. No stir plate so I just agitated it every time I thought about it. It looked good this morning (something like this)..



so I pitched it into 3.4litres of DME/water (boiled) mix this morning. It has been going for about 6hrs and looks like this....

Oh that looks very happy

 

[BarbarianBrewer]

Seems like your cleaning routine is good. How smooth are the inside walls of your fermentation buckets? If they are scratched, that may be the source of your infections. It's hard to clean and sanitize into the scratches. I've tossed a couple buckets and stopped stacking my buckets because they were getting scratched up.

Regarding not making a starter, unless the yeast is pretty old I don't think it would be enough of an under-pitch to affect the beer in a way you describe. I would recommend a yeast starter for 1.050, I just don't think that is the culprit. As to how long you does a yeast starter need, that varies quite a bit. I shoot for 18-24 hours. Some brewers like to pitch at high kreuzen, like what you show in the flask. So, that might take 6-12-ish hours depending on yeast health and ambient temperature. Something else I do with starters when the are in the 3-4 liter range is cold crash for 24 hours and decant most of the liquid.

 

[Ward Chillington]

I’m not sure what else I can do. Unless there is a chance the vessels just get infected to the extent that you can’t really clean it.

Like Barbi said.....what's the condition of your plastic? Buckets are great but can get scratches in them where bad bugs like to hide. You're doing the right thing to decontamination them, the only other thing that comes to mind is the fermentation temp and the yeast you are using....is there a mismatch there? Too high for an ale yeast makes for weird phenols.

Finally...how old is that yeast that you are doing a starter for such a small batch of wort? I would expect 3 liters to show a little life after that much and that active of a starter at 6 hours...that gallon looks still! What was the temperature delta at pitching? Did the starter get shocked?

 

[Buxton]

Just an update on what has happened. I did a yeast starter of Wyeast 1056 for two pale ale batches. They were set on 25th Nov and are nearly done, I’m at about 6 on the Brix scale at the mo so another 0.5 and we would be nearly done.

I did a lager yeast (2208) yeast starter in 3.5litres that I grew for 48hrs and did my brew day on 29th November, having pitched the starter (concentrated down by cold crashing, and recirculating in new media for 6hrs). I have no fermentation activity at all. It is now day 3. What can I do?

I did create a small 500ml starter of the same yeast which has now finished so I was going to cool, concentrate and store. Should I just add this into the brew instead?

 

[BarbarianBrewer]

How are you judging the lack of fermentation activity? I ask because airlocks on buckets are notoriously silent due to the lids not sealing tightly and CO2 escaping via that path instead of the airlock. Do you see kreuzen or remnants of one on the sides of the bucket? The only way to know for sure is to take a gravity reading. If the gravity is still at your OG then you need to pitch new yeast. Lastly what temperature are you fermenting at? Cooler temps, which is where most lager yeasts like to be, take longer to get going. But, I would expect you would be seeing some evidence of fermentation after 3 days.