This weekend I brewed a lager for the first time in about a year, and in my efforts to improve my quality I did a starter.
Now from what I have read on here and in my books, lagers really need a big starter, so I decided to do a 3L starter (OG 1.040) with two vials of WLP838 for 36 hours (swirling it every hour or so). I got a nice thick layer of yeast at the bottle of my 1gal jug (about 1-1.5 in). I decanted and added some clean water to slurry it, took some out and put it back into one of the vials (I want to add a little for conditioning with DME).
Was/is this the correct process?
Should I wash the yeast I pulled off for later with clean water or can it sit on the used up starter fluid?
I am slightly worried that I overpitched, but with a lager I think that would be difficult in a homebrew setting (according to Designing Great Beers I think it was that a vial is about 10% of what a lager really needs, even though MrMalty says 4.5 vials without starter).
Thank you ahead of time for any responses.
Now from what I have read on here and in my books, lagers really need a big starter, so I decided to do a 3L starter (OG 1.040) with two vials of WLP838 for 36 hours (swirling it every hour or so). I got a nice thick layer of yeast at the bottle of my 1gal jug (about 1-1.5 in). I decanted and added some clean water to slurry it, took some out and put it back into one of the vials (I want to add a little for conditioning with DME).
Was/is this the correct process?
Should I wash the yeast I pulled off for later with clean water or can it sit on the used up starter fluid?
I am slightly worried that I overpitched, but with a lager I think that would be difficult in a homebrew setting (according to Designing Great Beers I think it was that a vial is about 10% of what a lager really needs, even though MrMalty says 4.5 vials without starter).
Thank you ahead of time for any responses.
