Hefeweizen yeast starter

[Hayden512]

Posted something about this in the yeast section but wasn't getting any answers. Making a 1.051 hef tomorrow and wanted the banana to come through more than clove without being a banana bomb. I was gonna pitch one packet without a starter and ferment around 66oF. However when I picked up yeast today the date was 5/1/16 with a vitality of 70%. I made a small .5 liter starter today for it just to get around 40b cells less than the recommended count. I was just wondering if I could pitch this tomorrow though. I prefer to crash and decant because I do not like putting the starter beer into the fermentor. Do I have enough time for it to reproduce, crash, decant, and warm up before pitching around 3pm eastern time tomorrow? And if not would a half liter starter impart any off flavors into the final beer if I pitch the whole thing?

 

[ZebulonBrewer]

It's only a half liter, so it's not like you're adding a ton of volume to your (I assume) five gallons of beer. It should be fine. Plus, if it isn't done done fermenting the starter wort, it won't flocculate well if you try and crash it. This happened to me on a lager I did (WLP830 yeast).

Plus, and I just thought of this: a hefe yeast doesn't floc well anyway, so crashing and decanting probably dumps a lot of good yeast in the process.

 

[obsessedbrewing]

I was gonna pitch one packet without a starter and ferment around 66oF. However when I picked up yeast today the date was 5/1/16 with a vitality of 70%. I made a small .5 liter starter today for it just to get around 40b cells less than the recommended count. I was just wondering if I could pitch this tomorrow though. I prefer to crash and decant because I do not like putting the starter beer into the fermentor. Do I have enough time for it to reproduce, crash, decant, and warm up before pitching around 3pm eastern time tomorrow? And if not would a half liter starter impart any off flavors into the final beer if I pitch the whole thing?

You can pitch tomorrow if you want, but you probably won't have time to crash it and decant. If you were way over your cell count, then I would say crash and decant because you could afford to lose some of the yeast still in suspension. However, since you're under by 40 billion cells (which honestly isn't that big of a deal), and hefe yeast tends to throw more banana esters when it's stressed, you probably should just pitch the whole starter.

I'm with you on decanting and not putting starter beer into my real beer, but you're schedule is pressed at this point. I'd let the starter ride on the stir plate (if you have one) until you need to pitch it. Assuming you're brewing a 19L batch, the 500mL starter you're adding will only be about 3% of the overall beer, which probably won't be detectable.

FWIW, I recently made a hefe using expired yeast (WLP300) stepped up twice in a starter to make sure it was healthy. I fermented it at 64°F and it still became a banana bomb. I don't know if that was because the yeast was already stressed from being expired, or if my calculations for the yeast growth weren't close enough to real life, or some other unknown variable. My recommendation would be to ferment even cooler at 60°F to suppress ester production.

 

[LuisCheco]

You can pitch tomorrow if you want, but you probably won't have time to crash it and decant. If you were way over your cell count, then I would say crash and decant because you could afford to lose some of the yeast still in suspension. However, since you're under by 40 billion cells (which honestly isn't that big of a deal), and hefe yeast tends to throw more banana esters when it's stressed, you probably should just pitch the whole starter.

I'm with you on decanting and not putting starter beer into my real beer, but you're schedule is pressed at this point. I'd let the starter ride on the stir plate (if you have one) until you need to pitch it. Assuming you're brewing a 19L batch, the 500mL starter you're adding will only be about 3% of the overall beer, which probably won't be detectable.

FWIW, I recently made a hefe using expired yeast (WLP300) stepped up twice in a starter to make sure it was healthy. I fermented it at 64°F and it still became a banana bomb. I don't know if that was because the yeast was already stressed from being expired, or if my calculations for the yeast growth weren't close enough to real life, or some other unknown variable. My recommendation would be to ferment even cooler at 60°F to suppress ester production.

I made an extract kit - Bavarian Hefe from NB this Sunday. I bought this kit a while ago. The expiration date said 06/16. Which means is 2 months expired. The yeast was refrigerated since I bought the kit.

Before getting any of this information. I planned my brew day thinking that wasn't a big deal.

After a few days (3 days to be exact) I pitch the yeast, my airlock isn't as vigorous as my last brews. I'm fermenting @65 F in a freezer with digital thermostat.

Should I ferment at lower temperature to suppress ester production as obsessedbrewing said?

 

[kh54s10]

I made an extract kit - Bavarian Hefe from NB this Sunday. I bought this kit a while ago. The expiration date said 06/16. Which means is 2 months expired. The yeast was refrigerated since I bought the kit.

Before getting any of this information. I planned my brew day thinking that wasn't a big deal.

After a few days (3 days to be exact) I pitch the yeast, my airlock isn't as vigorous as my last brews. I'm fermenting @65 F in a freezer with digital thermostat.

Should I ferment at lower temperature to suppress ester production as obsessedbrewing said?

You don't have much room for going cooler. If you go below 60 you could easily cause the yeast to go dormant.

Different yeasts create different amounts of fermentation activity.

Pitching expired yeast without making a starter will also change the action of the fermentation. The yeast will do a lot of reproduction with less activity at the beginning. Then they will work of fermenting the wort.