I added 2 more quarts of wort this morning and am boiling two more quarts now.
I'm torn on whether to bring it upstairs where it's warmer. It's about 58F where it is now. I've read conflicting reports on whether to ferment a starter at pitching temps or room temps.
I got mine from Midwest. Paid about $40. I remembered seeing the one at Northern but couldn't remember where I saw it Oh well.
Looking good. Just popped it in the fridge. I'm hoping to get a good settling by tomorrow. Otherwise I may have to push off my brew day. Learning by doing
Well, my fridge smells like fermentation, there's bubbling in the starter and a nice layer of yeast on the bottom. I'm guessing that means now would be a good time to pitch!
I'm going to try to decant most of the wort off, since the starter is so big.
It really needed another day or two to settle - those lager yeasties didn't want to floc out
So I ended up sanitizing my 2l flask and pouring the first two liters off into that, which I popped back on the stirplate. I dumped about another 1l down the drain and pitched the bottom 2l into my Oktoberfest.
So I'm quite hopeful that there was a large enough yeast colony there, but just in case I'll have the 2l backup ready.
question about stepping up your yeast starter size... should you let the krausen fall back in, before adding more wort? or just take it off the stirplate at some point and drop it in the fridge to let the yeast settle out, and then add the additional wort?
question about stepping up your yeast starter size... should you let the krausen fall back in, before adding more wort? or just take it off the stirplate at some point and drop it in the fridge to let the yeast settle out, and then add the additional wort?
I have the same question!
I just made a 1L starter lastnight and wanted to go up to a 2L size.
I'd like to chime in and give a few pointers for using the PRC (pitching rate calculator) and doing a stepped starter. If we start with 5 gallons of 1.053 OG lager and one 25 day old liquid yeast pack, MrMalty spits out a 4.02L starter and 370 Billion cells needed. That would be for 1 yeast pack into 4L of 1.040 wort.
When you add your single yeast pack to a 2L starter, you can use the calculator to figure out how many cells are made. With the original numbers plugged in to the calculator for your beer, manipulate the OG and/or batch size until the starter size needed is 2L. Plugging in 1.0387 for the OG will do this. So, based on the viability of your yeast and the size of the first step starter (2L), the PRC says you've made 274 Billion cells.
Now, at this point you have 2 options for the second step up. Chill, decant and add an amount of 1.040 wort that we will calculate later, or add the right gravity wort so that when combined with the existing, you get a 1.040 resultant. I don't like having to calculate the resultant so I chill and decant to start over.
Using the PRC as we left it with the 1.0387 fake gravity, uncheck the "Calculate Viability from Date" box. We will now fool the calculator and raise the viability of our resultant first step yeast as if it were one super viable yeast pack. Raise the viability % until the "# Vials or packs needed without starter" goes to 1. This should be 261%. Now, put your gravity back to the real number of 1.053 and the PRC gives you the second step size necessary for 370 Billion cells which is only 1L. Until I learned this, I was over pitching.
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Up Next: Some sort of big stout
Fermenting: Turbid Mash Spelt pLambic, Kriek, Sacchless Pale Ale, Sour Belgian Dark Strong
Drinking: Trois Levure Saison, Black IPA, 2011 Hop Harvest IPA, Sour Blonde, American Barleywine, Dopplebock
30 gallons YTD
Oh well.
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