2 step starter questions

[rtracer]

Do you need to crash and decant between starters?


I alluded to this in an earlier thread without much input.
I am brewing a (NE syle) IPA on saturday.
Bought a pack of Gigyeast Vermont IPA yeast yesterday. Its reported as a double pitch pack with 200b cells. Last evening I made a 1L(actually a bit bigger) starter and put in on the stir plate. This evening I got home from work and poured a pint into a Mason jar to save for later. I am now left with 800ML in my 2L flask. I plan on doing a second 1L starter to pitch into my brew Saturday.


I've now had my flask in the fridge for an hour crashing, but I am wondering if I could just make up a second batch or wort and pitch on top of the "beer" w/out decanting this evening.

I wont get home from work till tomorrow evening and I am thinking if I take out the flask at 5pm, I won't be able to add the new wort for a number of hours till it warms up.

Another option would be to pull the flask out of fridge tomorrow morning and put it in my ferm fridge that is currently set at 68* so it would be ready for when I get home from work.

 

[bschot]

If I understand what you are saying I think you can, I've done a 2 step starter in this fashion. The online calculator called for something like a .8 L starter and then a stepped starter of 1.5 L or something like that. And to save myself the process of decanting and pitching on a new starter (I didn't have another flask.) Once the .8 L starter was finished, I made a small starter in a pot of .7 L of water (difference of 1.5 L and .8 L starter) and added the difference of 1.5 L and .8 L of malt extract. For example if the .8 L starter called for 3 oz of malt extract and the 1.5 L starter called for 4.4 oz of malt extract, I added 1.4 oz of malt extract to the .7 L second starter. I boiled and chilled as normal and then poured it directly into my already finished starter.

Good Luck



-Brian

 

[chickypad]

If you decant it first then swirl up the yeast in the small volume left it doesn't take a number of hours for it to warm up to pitching temp. It should warm up by the time you boil and cool the new wort.

 

[rtracer]

Cool, I went ahead and pulled it our of the fridge and put it in the 68* ferm chamber this morning.

 

[DurtyChemist]

How big of a beer are you brewing? Gigayeast comes with 200 billion cells which should be good enough for most IPAs.

EDIT: A 1.060 beer needs 220 billion cells at 0.75mill/mL*P according to homebrew dad's yeast calculator. Pitching 200 billion into a 1L 1.040 starter gets you 291 billion. This is using 8/15/16 as a production date but still you're close to 300 billion cells with your first starter with a growth factor of only 1.11 which means you're not gaining much with your pitch rate and your inoculation rate is REALLY high...like 40% higher than what it should be which is why you're growth rate is so low.

For comparison using 100 billion cells you'd have an inoculation rate of 69, a growth factor of 2.22 and a result of 222 billion cells. Almost as many cells as you starter with but a MUCH high growth factor. A 1.085 beer needs 305 billion cells using the same calculator.

 

[rtracer]

Going to be around 1.060-065.
I took that 800ml, decanted most of the beer and poured in another 1200ml for the second step.

 

[DurtyChemist]

You could store that 800ml and have a clean pitch for your next brew. Easier than harvesting from the bottom of the carboy.