Sloppy Old Slurry Starter vs. Fresh Yeast | xBmt Results!

[Brulosopher]

I appreciate simple methods that produce good beer, plus I'm cheap. I've been curious about how well unrinsed yeast harvested from the bottom of a fermentor that was stored for a bit would perform compared to fresh yeast, particularly after the Sloppy Slurry vs. Clean Starter xBmt. I put this one to the test and the results are in!

http://brulosophy.com/2015/07/15/sloppy-old-slurry-starter-vs-fresh-yeast-exbeeriment-results/

 

[TheHappyHopper]

Good read! I like to repitch the yeast slurry when I can because of the simplicity - but up to now I have always just tried to make my brew day and bottling day line up so I don't have to try to store the yeast slurry for any period of time (I also don't bother doing a starter this way). The few times I have tried it, it has turned out great. I am sending off a blonde ale to a couple competitions here in the next few weeks that was fermented using this method, so we will see if the judges can note any off flavors. As far as I am concerned though, it has been one of my best beers yet!

 

[Brulosopher]

Good read! I like to repitch the yeast slurry when I can because of the simplicity - but up to now I have always just tried to make my brew day and bottling day line up so I don't have to try to store the yeast slurry for any period of time (I also don't bother doing a starter this way). The few times I have tried it, it has turned out great. I am sending off a blonde ale to a couple competitions here in the next few weeks that was fermented using this method, so we will see if the judges can note any off flavors. As far as I am concerned though, it has been one of my best beers yet!

Thanks! I absolutely plan to compare sloppy old slurry without a starter to fresh yeast, probably sooner than later, as I'm not convinced the starter contributed all that much.

 

[TheMadKing]

Love the XBMT, I have a couple questions with this one though

You might have taken all this into account, but I just didn't see it in there. Did you attempt to estimate the cell count of your slurry and match the cell count of the dry yeast? If yes then ignore my questions, if not they still stand as questions.

1) what were the (estimated obvious) comparative pitch rates? a 2 day lag time seems like the fresh yeast was likely underpitched to me.

2) Do you think any difference in flavor might have come from the different fermentation times caused by different pitch rates?

3) You mentioned that the starter behaved differently than usual, I'm curious how? And could it have been because of the extremely high cell count going into the starter compared to the usual fresh yeast?

Keep up the quest for knowledge, and thanks for all your work!

 

[Brulosopher]

Love the XBMT, I have a couple questions with this one though

You might have taken all this into account, but I just didn't see it in there. Did you attempt to estimate the cell count of your slurry and match the cell count of the dry yeast? If yes then ignore my questions, if not they still stand as questions.

1) what were the (estimated obvious) comparative pitch rates? a 2 day lag time seems like the fresh yeast was likely underpitched to me.

2) Do you think any difference in flavor might have come from the different fermentation times caused by different pitch rates?

3) You mentioned that the starter behaved differently than usual, I'm curious how? And could it have been because of the extremely high cell count going into the starter compared to the usual fresh yeast?

Keep up the quest for knowledge, and thanks for all your work!

1) Yeah, I use age of the yeast from date of harvest and estimated cells in dense slurry minus the approximate amount of non-yeast trub material. Still, I've a hunch there was more yeast than I estimated in the slurry batch.

2) The differences weren't reliably distinguishable, so I'm not sure any comments on this would be helpful.

3) It basically just looked different-- no krausen, specks of **** floating around, very few CO2 bubbles rising up the flask. One friend speculated this may have been because the starter finished attenuating within the first few hours post-pitch.

Cheers!