Question about high cell pitching lagers

[badbrew]

I have wyeast 2112 that is going to be about 15% when I use it next week. I see that I need about 370 bill cells which means three 1.5L starter steps.

My question is, how do you gaurd against overflow when you get that active? My project for tonight involving stepping once is sitting under 2" of krausen right now. The three step one next week is bound to overflow, right?

 

[NordeastBrewer77]

use a vessel that can contain the entire starter + the foam. that's what i do.

 

[slarkin712]

Are you chilling the starter between steps and decanting the spent wort?

 

[badbrew]

Well I only have a 2L flask, so that's what I'm doing. And yeah I am chilling and decanting. I think I found the solution. My starter from yesterday was ready to overflow and I simply turned off the stir plate. The krausen dropped. Then I placed the flask in the fridge and after it got cold, the krausen started to overflow again. So I placed a few drops of fermcap on it and problem was solved. Still wierd about the overflow when it was at 40F though.

Oh and I couldn't decant the one yesterday because it would not stop fermenting after 6 hours in the fridge. It is supposed to be good at 55-68F not 38-40F. No biggie though.