Made a starter for my milk chocolate stout about 8 days ago let it go for 5 and now it's been in the fridge for 3. How long can a starter go for before it needs to be tossed out?
I let one go for a almost 3 weeks in the fridge with no problems. The morning of the brew day I decanted the old liquid off and added a bit of fresh starter wort to help wake up the yeasties ahead of pitching into the full batch, but I'm not sure if that was even really necessary.
It's not just about yeast numbers; yeast health is a major reason for making a starter. That's why if I have to refrigerate my starter more than 2-3 days I will decant them the day before brew day, and add 1/2 volume of new starter wort back to the vessel. Once it's up to full krausen it's ready to pitch.
It's a good question, I made a starter from a yeast slurry for the first time, threw it in the fridge for three days, went to the brew shop on Saturday to pick up ingredients to brew on Sunday, then woke up Sunday sick.
I plan on brewing this weekend but the starter has been in the fridge for at least ten days. I'm guessing it'll be fine but we'll see.
My story is a bit on the extreme side but it appears to have worked out fine:
Picked up the ingredients for a Fireman's 4 clone to brew last October. Got my 2 liter starter up and running and all was good. Threw it in the garage fridge because I couldn't brew the following week nor the week after that (life is great that way). Next thing I know a baby girl arrived in my life and things got a bit chaotic for the last few months.
Well, I finally got a chance to brew last weekend so I dumped a 2 cup starter on the cake. I figured what the hell, we'll chalk it up to an experiment. 24 hours on the stir plate and it smelled/tasted fine so into the wort it went. It was fermenting like mad by the time I went to bed and was done in about 4-5 days. Hit my FG on the nose and the sample tasted great.
So, while this is on the extreme side .. 4+ months and it worked out fine.
Wow, that's great to know, thanks for sharing. Pitched mine that had been sitting in the fridge for a couple of weeks and everything looks normal so far.
Optimally you want to pitch within a day or two but I often end up going 5-7 days after removing from the plate and cooling because life gets in the way. Never have had a problem...
How long is a starter good for?
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