When to step up started?

Without measuring starter intermittently when can I know when I'm ready to decant and step up?

I'm trying to figure out when to begin my first starter so It can be ready by brew day. I need a 2 step starter.

422 billion yeast cells needed. Ill be pitching 2 Wyeast smack packs into 1.5L starter. 2nd step will be 1.5 as well. Viability is around 50% on each pack. This should leave me with 470 billion cells.

aeviaanah said:

Without measuring starter intermittently when can I know when I'm ready to decant and step up?

I'm trying to figure out when to begin my first starter so It can be ready by brew day. I need a 2 step starter.

422 billion yeast cells needed. Ill be pitching 2 Wyeast smack packs into 1.5L starter. 2nd step will be 1.5 as well. Viability is around 50% on each pack. This should leave me with 470 billion cells.

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Three days for each step should be fine. Especially on a stir plate. If you take initial and final gravity readings it can give you a much better idea of the cell count. There are about 1 billion cells grown for every gram of sugar consumed. There is a table in my book that you can look up the OG and FG with either a refractometer or a hydrometer and find the number of cells grown. It will be available next month.

WoodlandBrew said:

Three days for each step should be fine. Especially on a stir plate. If you take initial and final gravity readings it can give you a much better idea of the cell count. There are about 1 billion cells grown for every gram of sugar consumed. There is a table in my book that you can look up the OG and FG with either a refractometer or a hydrometer and find the number of cells grown. It will be available next month.

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THankyou for the response

What are you brewing? 470 billion cells is a lot. Are you using a stirplate? I go 18-24 hours, chill overnight, decant and start the next step, decant for the next step or if the step was over 1 liter. So about 4 - 5 days for a 2 step starter.

kh54s10 said:

What are you brewing? 470 billion cells is a lot. Are you using a stirplate? I go 18-24 hours, chill overnight, decant and start the next step, decant for the next step or if the step was over 1 liter. So about 4 - 5 days for a 2 step starter.

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1.050 Pilsner. I chose lager using yeastcalc. It calls for 470 billion.

24 hrs on a stirplate, 12-18 hrs. chill / decant (decant when beer atop yeast is crystal clear), repeat for multiple steps.

For lagers, I bought a 1 gal jug with a fairly flat bottom and use it for my starter, works great.

470 billion sounds good without double checking for a lager. I find that 18-24 hours on a stirplate. Chill overnight to a day until the starter wort is pretty clear, decant and start the next step. So usually it is 2 days per step for me. I find yeastcalc.com does a good job for me. I have a 2 liter flask, so I work around what it will handle.

I have a fermentation chamber and have my first lager going right now. It is having trouble getting the low temperatures I want for lagers so I am putting them on hold until I get a freezer for a fermentation chamber. I might then need a larger flask!

would it be detrimental to chill 2 days after the last step?

aeviaanah said:

would it be detrimental to chill 2 days after the last step?

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Not at all. I've actually seen better performance from yeast that was allowed to run to completion and refrigerated compared to active yeast.

http://woodlandbrew.blogspot.com/2013/02/side-by-side-starters-part-1-of-4.html