Hi, I made a 1 cup starter last night and pitched a 26 ml tube of frozen wyeast german ale yeast. Put it on the stir plate and let it do its thing. 18 hours later there is a 3 inch layer of foam on top with a lot of brown specks on top. I'm assuming this is dead yeast. In the bottom there is very little white yeast and the white yeast is that is there is very clumpy. Nothing like I have ever seen.
So the question....Did my frozen yeast fail or should I step it up to a liter and expect to see a lot of yeast? I'm just puzzled because I have never seen this much brown gunk on the krausen and in suspension..
BTW the yeast did look healthy when I thawed it if that means anything.
Well I'm going to see. The foam fell once I took it off the stir plate so I'm not sure if it was krausen or just foam in general. I'm making a step up starter right now and I'm going to give it a try and see what happens.
UPDATE: Starter took off like a rocket after i added the 1 liter step up. CONCLUSION: be patient, don't expect much yeast from the first step up from a frozen vial, RDWHAHB, and frozen yeast is awesome.
UPDATE: Starter took off like a rocket after i added the 1 liter step up. CONCLUSION: be patient, don't expect much yeast from the first step up from a frozen vial, RDWHAHB, and frozen yeast is awesome.
I need to keep that in mind. I tried this for the first time and was disappointed with the first pint starter. I saw very little activity and was afraid to use it, so I threw it out.
Yeast Starter from frozen yeast bank
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