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You are here: Home --> Forum Home --> Brewing Forum --> Brewing Discussion --> starter duration?

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homebrewdad
Charter Member
Birmingham, AL
2480 Posts


I've tried the high krausen method when I wasn't able to source the yeast I wanted as quickly as I had hoped. I honestly couldn't tell a difference. Then again, I freely admit that I'm a hack without a sensitive palate.




Posted 34 days ago.

chino_brews
Charter Member
Eden Prairie, MN
301 Posts


Well, my post via e-mail is not working again (iPhone 6 and iOS 9.3.0). My comment from earlier this morning is perhaps rendered obsolete by Mchrispen, but here it is anyway:

Agree with testingapril here and it is consistent with my naked eye observations. 

"Done" is when you have propagated more or less the maximum number of cells you will propagate. "Done" is not when the starter is finished being fermented into beer. After all, what is your goal: to make a tiny beer or to propagate yeast?

IMO, there are two good ways to go (and all cases assume reasonable inoculation rate): 

(1) Pitch the entire starter at 18 hours, with the idea of that you have maximum number of cells, and they are at peak vitality. I don't mind pitching the starter beer at that point because it is rather worry, and I can just adjust my base malt and OG to compensate. 

(2) Let the starter finish fermenting, cold crash it, decant the gross starter beer, (optionally and ideally make a vitality starter,) and pitch only the yeast/vitality starter. 

What seems to be bad (at least In my brewery) is to cold crash the yeast for a relatively short period of time sometime before the starter is fully fermented. The yeast have a tendency to want to stay in suspension even when it is cold, and I suspect you lose 1/4 to 1/2 of the cells in the decanted supernatent, based on observations of yeast layer thickness. 




Posted 34 days ago.

homebrewdad
Charter Member
Birmingham, AL
2480 Posts


Interesting observations, Chino. I tried a cold crash once on an "incomplete" stater, and saw the same reluctance to crash that you did. I now give an extra day or so to be sure that they are "done" before I crash.

On Mon, Apr 25, 2016 at 1:19 PM, chino_brews <[email protected]> wrote:
Well, my post via e-mail is not working again (iPhone 6 and iOS 9.3.0). My comment from earlier this morning is perhaps rendered obsolete by Mchrispen, but here it is anyway:

Agree with testingapril here and it is consistent with my naked eye observations.

"Done" is when you have propagated more or less the maximum number of cells you will propagate. "Done" is not when the starter is finished being fermented into beer. After all, what is your goal: to make a tiny beer or to propagate yeast?

IMO, there are two good ways to go (and all cases assume reasonable inoculation rate):

(1) Pitch the entire starter at 18 hours, with the idea of that you have maximum number of cells, and they are at peak vitality. I don't mind pitching the starter beer at that point because it is rather worry, and I can just adjust my base malt and OG to compensate.

(2) Let the starte! r finish fermenting, cold crash it, decant the gross starter beer, (optionally and ideally make a vitality starter,) and pitch only the yeast/vitality starter.

What seems to be bad (at least In my brewery) is to cold crash the yeast for a relatively short period of time sometime before the starter is fully fermented. The yeast have a tendency to want to stay in suspension even when it is cold, and I suspect you lose1/4 to 1/2of the cells in the decanted supernatent, based on observations of yeast layer thickness.


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Posted 34 days ago.

testingapril
Charter Member
Atlanta, GA
595 Posts


I harvest out of the high krausen wort. I just leave a bit of headroom in the jar that I harvest into and let it finish out with the lid on loosely.

I don't decant any waste wort.

On Apr 25, 2016 2:40 PM, "homebrewdad" <[email protected]> wrote:
Interesting observations, Chino. I tried a cold crash once on an "incomplete" stater, and saw the same reluctance to crash that you did. I now give an extra day or so to be sure that they are "done" before I crash.

On Mon, Apr 25, 2016 at 1:19 PM, chino_brews <[email protected]> wrote:
Well, my post via e-mail is not working again (iPhone 6 and iOS 9.3.0). My comment from earlier this morning is perhaps rendered obsolete by Mchrispen, but here it is anyway:

Agree with testingapril here and it is consistent with my naked eye observations.

"Done" is when you have propagated more or less the maximum number of cells you will propagate. "Done" is not when the starter is finished being fermented into beer. After all, what is your goal: to make a tiny beer or to propagate yeast?

IMO, there are two good ways to go (and all cases assume reasonable inoculation rate):

(1) Pitch the entire starter at 18 hours, with the idea of that you have maximum number of cells, and they are at peak vitality. I don't mind pitching the starter beer at that point because it is rather worry, and I can just adjust my base malt and OG to compensate.

(2) Let the starte! r finish fermenting, cold crash it, ! decant the gross starter beer, (optionally and ideally make a vitality starter,) and pitch only the yeast/vitality starter.

What seems to be bad (at least In my brewery) is to cold crash the yeast for a relatively short period of time sometime before the starter is fully fermented. The yeast have a tendency to want to stay in suspension even when it is cold, and I suspect you lose1/4 to 1/2of the cells in the decanted supernatent, based on observations of yeast layer thickness.


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Posted 34 days ago.

ingoogni
nl
314 Posts


|Chino-brews: "After all, what is your goal: to make a tiny beer or to propagate yeast"

Well, ehm, no. You want to make yeast not beer. The base is not a standard wort you use to make beer, it's an enriched one with added nitrogen zinc oxygen etc. I wouldn't callit a 'tiny beer'.
Coldcrashing is indeed rather useless when there is any nutrient left in the medium. If there is nothing left the yest will drop out anyway so if you're a few days a head there is no real need to cold crash. If you cold crash and there are no nutrients the yeast will start using its reserves to increase its resistance to the cold. To prevent that you'll have to crash when there is still nutrients left ....
I can't find the data at the moment but the vitality of the yeast goes down fast warm as well as in cold storage, especialy lager yeast. If your starter is ready too early, just add some wort to it and stirr without adding oxygen to prevent the yeast from flocculating and dropping out. Do the same again at brewday but now airate to increase the fitness/vitality.

A well working method to get the same temperature for wort and starter, especialy for lagers is to keep adding small amounts for cold wort to the warm starter. The yeast will like the sugars and adapt to the dropping temperature. It also gives a highly active pitch and reduces the osmotic shock.

|mchrispen: "For what it is worth, I still use my stirplate, but at the lowest possible speed to barely keep the yeast in suspension but absolutely no whirlpool dimple during the lag and exponential phase. I turn it off after any krausen shows[..]"

Why? Do you airate?



Posted 34 days ago.
Edited 34 days ago by ingoogni

mchrispen
Bastrop, TX
485 Posts


White Labs recommends keeping yeasr in suspension. I do aerate vigorously with pue O2. If i had an orbital table, would use that.  The stir bar generates a slight current that helps.



Posted 34 days ago.

ingoogni
nl
314 Posts


Ah. I stirr fast, the goal of that is two/three-fold. Keep the yeast in suspension, prevent it flocking and make the pathway of the oxygen through the starter longer (spiral instead of straight up). In bioreactors the stirrer speed is used to control the ppm O2, not the l/min pushed through, it takes some time to dissolve the O2 from a bubble.




Posted 34 days ago.

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