Another yeast starter/harvesting thread

Covrich said:

That kind of leads me onto a question.. I have my SN chilled in a fridge for a week I have some DME coming next week so going to step up.. you finish off each step before you go into the next one? until after 2-3 weeks you're ready to go?

I can see myself taking my starter in a 500ml bottle to work next week to keep it shaking

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MyQul said:

I always let my step ups ferment out completly. If you've got time and brew day isn't impending(?), there no reason not to

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dan125 said:

Thanks again for the advice.
It does make sense to make sure you have the max number of cells before stepping up, but out of interest, would this technically count as an extra generation?

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MyQul said:

Yes. You only really need to shake the starter about 4 times per day. once as soon as you get up. once just before you got to work. once as soon as you get home from work and lastly once just before you go to bed. Thats what I do

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Garethhuwwilliams said:

Viz style top tip.
To keep your yeast in constant suspension, simply strap your starter bottle to your wrist for two days.

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Garethhuwwilliams said:

Viz style top tip.
To keep your yeast in constant suspension, simply strap your starter bottle to your wrist for two days.

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jeg3 said:

Except when it's split into two 2 litres bottles - but that's why we have two arms!

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MyQul said:

Like Cov say's that starter seems huge. If your making a beer <1.060 you only really need a 1L- 2L starter for a fresh vial of yeast. I usually make 2L starters in a 5L demijon. If you haven't got a DJ just use a 5L water bottle. You can use the water for brewing).

I'm always trying different harvesting techniques out. Overbuilding is a good method. I'd do a 2L starter and save 500ml (pitching 1.5L of course) to put in another 2L later on.

One recent method I've used is similar to overbuilding. Splitting:

1. Put the vial in 2L of wort and let it ferment out
2. Stir (not shake as you can get foam) the yeast into suspension.
3. Syphon the yeasty spent wort into 4x500ml bottles.

These 4 bottles are now new 'vials'. Just decant the spent wort off when you need one and put it into 2L of starter wort to pitch into your beer

On point 3, syphon into bottles rather than try to pour. I've tried pouring and you dont get an even distribution of yeast across the four bottles

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Johnf said:

Ok Ive been reading and re-reading this post as Ive just started using liquid yeast and have been looking at a way of getting more bang for my buck..

Step 1 make a wort with DME (2 litres) put wort into a 5litre pet bottle and let ferment out. Agitating x 4 each day.

Step 2 suspend yeast by gently swirling wort.

Step 3 syphon wort into 500ml bottles. Now would glass be OK? Cap and pop into fridge.

Step 4 open pour of spent wort then add yeast to a fresh starter. Then pitch when ready.

Have I got this OK??

Cheers
John

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Johnf said:

Ok Ive been reading and re-reading this post as Ive just started using liquid yeast and have been looking at a way of getting more bang for my buck..

Step 1 make a wort with DME (2 litres) put wort into a 5litre pet bottle and let ferment out. Agitating x 4 each day.

Step 2 suspend yeast by gently swirling wort.

Step 3 syphon wort into 500ml bottles. Now would glass be OK? Cap and pop into fridge.

Step 4 open pour of spent wort then add yeast to a fresh starter. Then pitch when ready.

Have I got this OK??

Cheers
John

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dan125 said:

My starter for this weekend's brew is now looking like this:-



I'm hoping this will be enough yeast for the 5.2%ish Centennial single hop brew I've got planned.

I'm quite excited about using a liquid yeast for a change, especially as this Vermont yeast is supposed to be good for hoppy beers (my favourite). So am thinking of using this yeast again in the brew after to make a kind of a 7% hop grenade of an AIPA that's sort of a rough approximation of a tribute to the beer that made the yeast famous - Heady Topper

Question is - would I be able to make a big enough starter in the 5L bottle, as MrMalty suggests I need a 2.89L starter even with max viability - but this is based on making the starter with 1 vial???

:

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MyQul said:

That looks to be how much yeald I get in my 5L DJ and I have put that much in beers of roughly the same abv so you'll be fine.

As to your Q of putting 2.89L starter in a 5L bottle. What the krausen like on th vermont strain? if its not a massive top cropping type strain you'll be fine putting it in a 5L bottle

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dan125 said:

It was pretty lively at first in the 5L bottle, but I don't really know more than that - I was hoping I might get away with going through same procedure. Using one of the 500ml bottles I've saved to make a new 500ml starter then step up to a 2-2.5L, but thinking this will probably give me just the same amount of yeast as I've got in the current starter.

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MyQul said:

Actually, seeing as your using the vermont yeast for two consecutive brews you can not bother making a starter up from of your 500ml bottles and just use a load of the trub havested from the Centennial beer and just chuck it into your 7% beer. Which will bypass wondering whether a 5L water bottle is big enough. Thats basically what I've started to do.

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dan125 said:

Hadn't thought of that - thanks!
Would work well as far as timing is concerned - and give me an excuse to try out my new hop spider. I wasn't going to bother as I only really want to use it for pellets in the kettle, and am planning on using whole centennial hops. But I'm guessing it would be better to keep the 100g of hops out of the trub if I'm going to use it.
Would it be better to pitch the new batch straight onto the whole yeast cake, or take some out and clean out the FV before starting the new batch?

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MyQul said:

Plenty of people pitch onto the old yeast cake no problems but I perfer to pour some into a jar and clean the FV, as pitching onto the old yeast cake is massively overpiching and doing this means that old tired yeast cells are fermenting your wort rather than first cloning new cells to do the job. I'm not sure if having hop debris in the trub that you pitch can have a detrimental effect. Unless anyone can tell me an different

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