timeline lager starter, help

so i have some very large starters going (these are my first lagers) 2x5.5 liter starters and 3x2 liter starters... they are on a stir plate, and were hit with o2 before i started the stir plate... 2 smak packs pitched into each of the 5.5 liter and 1 smak pack per 2 liter this is a large volume of starter, i am letting these stir at 75 degrees... how long till they flocculate out (i would assume crash cooling is out of the question because they are lager yeasts)

is it wrong to assume i cant crash cool then decant, i do not want all that oxidized wort in my beers...

whats the timeline, what is your process

i started the starters this evening i would like to brew on saturday or sunday?? is this out of the question?

So you have a total of 17 liters in five starters? All on stir plates? This is for one beer? How big is the batch?

You can absolutely cold crash 'em. Lager yeast, depending on the strain, should finish out just as quickly as any other yeast. 2308 is just as fast as 3787 IME.

so how fast is that???.... these are my first starters, how many hours till i can cold crash em?

The starters should go quite fast since you are fermenting them so warm and you pitched a decent amount in each starter. I would def try to chill them for 24 hours before decanting/pitching. Ha, good luck finding enough fridge room for all those flasks...then again you DO have 5 friggin stir-plates!

You should be able to do all that and brew Sunday easy, maybe even Saturday.

ok... awesome...... i pitched them thursday night, ill let them run till saturday night? brew on saturday, put wort and starters in big fermentation fridge saturday mid afternoon eveningish, decant on sunday and pitch on already cooled wort???? sound good?

Opherman47 said:

ok... awesome...... i pitched them thursday night, ill let them run till saturday night? brew on saturday, put wort and starters in big fermentation fridge saturday mid afternoon eveningish, decant on sunday and pitch on already cooled wort???? sound good?

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I doubt you'll have to run them until Saturday night. Let them run until they are just swirling with a smooth surface, no foam. That may be the case tonight but def should be by Saturday morning. Then chill, hopefully for ~24 hours before pitching.

The rest sounds good to me except I would add to aerate well when you pitch the yeast. You'll get way more O2 in solution when chilled than when warm and lagers really need that O2 early on ime.