how much time do I realistically need for my starter

[helterscelter]

I am planning to do a brew on saturday afternoon.. I usually would have built my starter on tuesday, but as you can guess I missed that and am considering if I have enough time to build a starter tonight and still have it done and cold-crashed by saturday evening.

I may not technically need to make a starter.. I'm working with several (6 I think) pure-pitch packets of WLP 820, of various ages... some (4 of them if I recall) are well over 6 months past due, and some ( 2?) are still within the useby date, but not real new. I was planning to make a starter with all of them just to get the old stuff out of the fridge and split the starter between my batch and put the rest in vials/freeze.

I'm making 10gallons of 1.057 marzen. what do you think I should do?

 

[balrog]

I'd use something HomeBrewDadYeastCalc for each packet, presume 100b ea packet, use the calc to determine % viability, sum those up to determine reasonable total viable billions, then use that calc with 10G of 1.057 LAGER settings and see what you come up with.

I have found with older (6 mo) yeast saved that it can take longer to "go" in the starter--but it will still work--and if you make it tonight you really only have about 36 hrs before you'd want to try some settling. You may not have time to crash, decant, save, and still warm and pitch remainder. You'd be pushing it but I think you'd be ok.

 

[jayway]

Just pitch the entire starter at high krausen 12-18 hours after you pitch the yeast in the starter. You can also pour off some for saving.

 

[jekeane]

I am planning to do a brew on saturday afternoon.. I usually would have built my starter on tuesday, but as you can guess I missed that and am considering if I have enough time to build a starter tonight and still have it done and cold-crashed by saturday evening.

I may not technically need to make a starter.. I'm working with several (6 I think) pure-pitch packets of WLP 820, of various ages... some (4 of them if I recall) are well over 6 months past due, and some ( 2?) are still within the useby date, but not real new. I was planning to make a starter with all of them just to get the old stuff out of the fridge and split the starter between my batch and put the rest in vials/freeze.

I'm making 10gallons of 1.057 marzen. what do you think I should do?

I just sat in a White Labs presentation last night and the WL rep said they have tested their pure pitch packs and found 75% viability at the 6 month mark (best buy date) and still at 90% 3 months after packaging.

I personally in this situation would create a vitality starter on brew day and pitch that. I usually just use 500-800ml of my chilled wort and spin that on the stir plate for 2-4 hours till I get krausen then pitch.

 

[cactusgarrett]

My vote is with jayway - pitch all your packs into a starter and pitch that starter at high krausen. At a 1.057 marzen, you're not needing to make a huge starter, so neither a large volume or decanting should be necessary.

 

[FunkedOut]

I’d throw all of those packs into a 4.6L 1.040 starter for a couple days, cold crash in the fridge overnight, decant and pitch.
(this is the same advice @balrog gave you)

 

[Kent88]

First, this seems relevant.

I typically use Wyeast, so I don't know what the instructions are for White Labs.

So I'll just say if it was me making 10 gallons of 1.057 wort, I'd make a starter. Even if I waited until right before I started brewing. I'd at least make something just to let me see that the yeast was awake. And I feel like you don't have to pitch ASAP after the wort is chilled, you could probably wait a good 6 hours or so.

 

[helterscelter]

Well I decided to go for it and make a 4l starter using all the yeast packs I have. It's cooling in the sink now

Gonna give it two days to finish.


That should be about done by the time my brew is done. I may pitch the whole thing or I may wait overnight to let it settle some and pitch around noon. We'll just have to see what it looks like.

Thanks for all the great feedback

 

[helterscelter]

Well I decided to go for it and make a 4l starter using all the yeast packs I have. It's cooling in the sink now

Gonna give it two days to finish.


That should be about done by the time my brew is done. I may pitch the whole thing or I may wait overnight to let it settle some and pitch around noon. We'll just have to see what it looks like.

Thanks for all the great feedback

I almost forgot. My yeast packs are different than I thought. Two are good until March 22 2018. Two are expired as of October 14 2017. And my oldest two are expired as of March 3 2017!

Guess I didn't brew nearly enough last year

 

[helterscelter]

I almost forgot. My yeast packs are different than I thought. Two are good until March 22 2018. Two are expired as of October 14 2017. And my oldest two are expired as of March 3 2017!

Guess I didn't brew nearly enough last year

Brew day went great.

Starter looked ok. I could've wished to have the yeast settle a little more but I can't complain too much.

Thanks again for all the advice!

 

[Kent88]

I could've wished to have the yeast settle a little more but I can't complain too much.

Have I been doing yeast starters wrong all this time? I always swirl it up really well before I add my starters to the cooled wort. I figure that swirling it up will make the yeast content of the starter more consistent through the layers. I also figure that keeping it uniform like that gives me a good chance of having both good and poorly flocculant cells of that strain. For a lager I figure it makes a ton of sense because I typically try to give it a month or so in secondary at cold temperatures, so its like it gets a really long cold crash anyway.

 

[helterscelter]

Have I been doing yeast starters wrong all this time? I always swirl it up really well before I add my starters to the cooled wort. I figure that swirling it up will make the yeast content of the starter more consistent through the layers. I also figure that keeping it uniform like that gives me a good chance of having both good and poorly flocculant cells of that strain. For a lager I figure it makes a ton of sense because I typically try to give it a month or so in secondary at cold temperatures, so its like it gets a really long cold crash anyway.

No you're doing it right. I crash the starter to get it to flocc out and settle. Then I decant most of the spent beer. Then I swirl and pitch. I'm sure I lose a ton of viable if not quite as flocculant yeast, but I don't typically repitch or wash my yeast so I don't really worry about evolving it to be too flocculant.

I dunno if it makes a difference but I don't like the idea of pitching 2L of spent beer into each of my 5g buckets. I usually look to pitch about a half a liter of volume or less depending on how well settled the starter is.

I'm probably over thinking it, but it seems that a starter doesn't taste all that great so putting it in the beer in large quantities would be a source of off flavors. I'm sure there is an article or two out there on this that I should read.

 

[balrog]

This is what I do as well but I overbuild. I make 1.5L starter, let it settle, typically making it Tue or Wed, put into chilly env Thu night or Fri am, the Sat at pitch time, typically 10am-noon, I decant to leave 1L. I swirl and pour off 12oz, which should be about 100b for next starter, and pitch the test which should be about 200b.