Stepping up Brett

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Ailstock

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I have 2 vials each of WLP644 Brett Trois.

I have put each vial in a 1000ml flask, with a wort of 2 cups of water to 1/2 cup of DME.

They've been in the starters for about 3 days.
My question is what would be the next step to stepping the Brett up enough for a 5 gallon batch for each one?
 
Typically you want to do steps in 10X increments, depending on the count of the starting material. Brett or Sacc, they behave essentially the same with respect to starter preps. The Vials you get from white labs are intended to be used as secondary fermentations, not primary, so the yeast count in a vial is like 1:10-1:100th what is in a vial ment for primary fermentation (35-100million vs 100-300 billion yeast cells). your best bet would have been to put them in 200ml of media for the first step, then go up to 2000ml.

I'd say your best bet would be to cold crash what you have, then remove the spent media and replace it with 2000ml of fresh if you can, that should get you close to a proper pitching rate, depending on your gravity.
 
White Labs says 3-5 days spinning per step, as opposed to the 24-36 hours for sacc.

Also, most say to pitch lager type cell counts for brett only fermentations.

I actually just did this for a wlp644 IPA. Its still bubbling, so can't report on actual results, but all my research led to the preceding.
 
Bsquared said:
Typically you want to do steps in 10X increments, depending on the count of the starting material. Brett or Sacc, they behave essentially the same with respect to starter preps. The Vials you get from white labs are intended to be used as secondary fermentations, not primary, so the yeast count in a vial is like 1:10-1:100th what is in a vial ment for primary fermentation (35-100million vs 100-300 billion yeast cells). your best bet would have been to put them in 200ml of media for the first step, then go up to 2000ml.

I'd say your best bet would be to cold crash what you have, then remove the spent media and replace it with 2000ml of fresh if you can, that should get you close to a proper pitching rate, depending on your gravity.
Click to expand...

Well the one I did came out between 200ml-300ml when I made it.

image-2537285263.jpg
 
Oh I see, you should bring those both up to 1000ml with fresh wort, If you have a bigger flask, you might want to use that.

You have a stir plate too right ?
 
Bsquared said:
Oh I see, you should bring those both up to 1000ml with fresh wort, If you have a bigger flask, you might want to use that.

You have a stir plate too right ?
Click to expand...

Yeah I do, but only one. I don't wanna use one with it and one not. I'm not brewing till next week so I figured I'd do a slower starter that takes a little longer to step up. I still haven't decided if I'm going to use it for 6 gallon batch split into separate 3 gallons, or use one Brett starter for a 6 gallon batch, and the other for a different 6 gallon batch. :p If that made any sense.
 
Just re pitched one Brett starter on about 900ml of wort. 2 hours and it looks like this. That normal? Looks healthy. I put it on the strip plate this time.

image-2496102074.jpg
 
Ailstock said:
Just re pitched one Brett starter on about 900ml of wort. 2 hours and it looks like this. That normal? Looks healthy. I put it on the strip plate this time.
Click to expand...

yes, brux trois has always been very fast to krausen for me
 

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