Delaney

Recipes 

Hi,

I'm making a two step 5 gallon starter. I'll be pitching this on 21 gallons of beer and lagering. Obviously I'll have to decant the liquid from the yeast cake. I'm using Wyeast Kolsch yeast, which remains in suspension after fermentation. Does this mean that I should cold crash my starter before I decant, in order to not lose yeast cells?

Thanks,

Delaney.

smakudwn

Recipes 

I cold crash my starter for the Kolsch I make.

NordeastBrewer77

Recipes 

i cold crash and decant all my starters. my last beer was and alt with that same yeast, i cold crashed for 2 days to get it clear, then decanted before pitching. it wasn't nearly on the scale of your starter, which is the size of the batch i'm fermenting, but i'm guessing the same theory applies.

__________________
The Polk Street Brewery
Brew Blog
Primary: Honey Weizen (a ,Midwest kit), Columbus IPA
Secondary: No. 3 Burton, RIS
Bottled: Simcoe IPA, Northern English Brown
Kegged: German Alt, Octane IPA

Give a man beer and his thirst is quenched. Teach a man to brew and it will never be again.

Delaney

Recipes 

Yeah I have a very cold fridge so I'll throw it in there for a couple days.

After I decant, I intend to pitch the yeast on two separate batches. Will it be liquidy enough on it's own to pour and split it in half, or should I add 0.5L of sterile water to loosen it up?

NordeastBrewer77

Recipes 

when you decant, leave just enough of the starter beer behind to mix the cake up into a good slurry. it should pour similar to the yeast in a smack pack, maybe a bit thicker but it should still pour easily.

__________________
The Polk Street Brewery
Brew Blog
Primary: Honey Weizen (a ,Midwest kit), Columbus IPA
Secondary: No. 3 Burton, RIS
Bottled: Simcoe IPA, Northern English Brown
Kegged: German Alt, Octane IPA

Give a man beer and his thirst is quenched. Teach a man to brew and it will never be again.

Delaney

Recipes 

I was just thinking in terms of avoiding use of oxidized beer.

NordeastBrewer77

Recipes 

shouldn't be an issue, the yeast will use up the o2 during the lag phase, so it'll be long gone before it begins to stale the beer. never really thought about it, but a starter has to be fairly oxidized by the time it's pitched, and i've never had oxidation issues.

__________________
The Polk Street Brewery
Brew Blog
Primary: Honey Weizen (a ,Midwest kit), Columbus IPA
Secondary: No. 3 Burton, RIS
Bottled: Simcoe IPA, Northern English Brown
Kegged: German Alt, Octane IPA

Give a man beer and his thirst is quenched. Teach a man to brew and it will never be again.

d_striker

Recipes 

Wow, a 5 gallon starter!

Could you just make a light lawnmower beer as the starter? It would seem like a waste to throw out 5 gallons of dme/starter wort.

Delaney

Recipes 

Yeah I guess but that would take longer, and I need to brew these lagers now before my wine cellar starts to warm up.

I'm only using about $10 of malt extract to achieve my target SG of 1.040 anyways...I bet some of the local alcoholics would drink it, but I'm going to water my lawn with it.

NordeastBrewer77

Recipes 

so it won't be a lawnmower beer, but it'll still serve it's landscaping purpose.

__________________
The Polk Street Brewery
Brew Blog
Primary: Honey Weizen (a ,Midwest kit), Columbus IPA
Secondary: No. 3 Burton, RIS
Bottled: Simcoe IPA, Northern English Brown
Kegged: German Alt, Octane IPA

Give a man beer and his thirst is quenched. Teach a man to brew and it will never be again.