william_shakes_beer
Well-Known Member
I have recently taken up brewing after a hiatus of several years. My first 2 brews failed to ferment. I have determined through other threads on this forum that the cause was mash temps that were too high and greatly reduced fermentability. So i decided to do my old crowd pleaser that required no mash, fermented cider. Guess what, failure to ferment!!! I have since pulled out a sample of the (must?) and placed it on my stir plate. It has been spinning for 2 days and is sloooowly fermenting. I plan to go to the LHBS tomorrow and get a second package of the same sider yeast and pitch it into the starter, then re-pitch the main bucket once it has settled out.
That got me thinking; Is it possible the first 2 batches failed to ferment because I did not do a starter?
Prior to my hiatus, I was ranching yeast so I always did a starter beginning the Monday before my scheduled brew Saturday. Prior to that I was doing extract kits and i never did a starter.
Should I always do a starter? I had thought that the commercial pitch packs *should* have enough cells to attenuate a moderate gravity batch. FYI the first 2 batches were WLP550 pure pitch, the third was cider house select because that's what my LHBS had in stock at the time.
That got me thinking; Is it possible the first 2 batches failed to ferment because I did not do a starter?
Prior to my hiatus, I was ranching yeast so I always did a starter beginning the Monday before my scheduled brew Saturday. Prior to that I was doing extract kits and i never did a starter.
Should I always do a starter? I had thought that the commercial pitch packs *should* have enough cells to attenuate a moderate gravity batch. FYI the first 2 batches were WLP550 pure pitch, the third was cider house select because that's what my LHBS had in stock at the time.
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