My Belgian Strong Ale (Wyeast 1388) yeast starter

Making an AG version of my Belgian Hose Water recipe. (so named because my chiller leaked putting water straight from the hose into my cooling wort)

Decided to take some pictures of the starter as it progresses...so why not share?

Here is the starter (1/3 gallon 1.3 cups DME) with my Wyeast 1388 added:


There is a little foam on there from the agitation and StarSan. This quickly dissipated as the home made stir plate did it job.

Here is the starter after 17 hours:


A little krausen on there even with the stir plate going and it has gotten noticeably lighter as the yeast have multiplied. Just prepared another 2/3 of a gallon of wort (2.6 quarts water and 2.6 cups DME) with 1 tsp. of yeast nutrient to add at the 24 hour point.

Very nice pics!

Its really an odd yeast, almost like a wine yeast in the way it acts.

Not much in the way of krausen but it certainly gets the job done.
Took my Golden Strong from 1.067 to 1.005

Here is the starter after 23 hours:


Not much different than the 17 hour picture, just wanted to get it before I added the 2/3 gallon of additional wort.

Here it is after the addition:


Looking darker again with all the extra wort.

After 36 hours, 12 hours with fresh wort and nutrient added:


With all that yeast in there, it really took off with the fresh wort. I didn't notice much of a krausen when making starters on a stir plate before, but there is definitely one this time. The stir plate seems to keep the krausen broken up but this is really bubbling.

Close up of krausen, can see the bubbles rising to the top quickly, looks like a milky gallon of soda:

After 46 hours:


Still a nice krausen and lots of C02 being produced but it is really getting lighter. I am going to have a lot of yeast! Nice!

Great thread! I just made my first yeast starter about 8 hrs ago. Its about 1 AM, and I was a little nervous, because I haven't seen any bubbling or krausen yet. So I went online, found your pics, and see that mine is starting to lighten in color like your "17 hour photo." Peeeerrrrfect. I was nervous because i was looking for krausen, but now realize that a changed coloration means that new yeast is being formed.

Sadly, i have been only been home for minimal hours the past couple days, so I will only have 24 hrs for my starter to prep. Its OK though- I made 2 quarts of starter for a 5 gal batch of Tripel, OG expected to be 1.079, and I am using Wyeast Trappist High Gravity yeast, so I should be fine.

Here is the starter this morning after 60 hours:


Doesn't look much different than after 48. I think the yeast had pretty much finished multiplying and at this point just fermentation was going on and even that was finishing up.

Popped the starter in the refrigerator and after a few hours:


Nice slurry settling to the bottom:


Really glad I made this starter because I used my barley crusher for the first time and it seems like my efficiency shot way up. It was pretty consistent around 70% but my preliminary calculations slow it at 85% this time! I have a feeling this is going to be a much bigger beer than I was anticipating!

Aren't you supposed to decant the old wort before you put fresh wort? You just poured fresh wort into the old wort?