First off let me start by sayingim not freaking out....I think everything will be ok. That being said, I made a 1.5 L starter yesterday for a Bavarian Hefe that I'm brewing later this afternoon. Everything went according to plan. I made the starter in a 1 gallon glass jug because I'm too cheap (read: resourceful) to go out and buy a 2 liter erlenmeyer because glass is glass is glass. Guy at my lbs said sanitized foil would do just fine for a "lid/airlock" on my 1 gallon jug. I have been swirling it everytime I walk past it to oxygenate it. Last swirl was 830 this morning before leaving for work. I just got home and swirled it again and I immediately hear pressure building, foam starts foaming, and off pops (pretty quickly actually) my foil "airlock". Now I doubt anything has contaminated my starter, but my question lies in the fact that if it built up a ton of pressure in my glass jug by swirling it just now, logic would dictate that it pretty much had a closed system and wasn't getting any air out throughout this process. I guess I'm curious to know if me swirling and it foaming up something vicious just now could have any adverse effects on my starter. If it was a closed system (which I think it was because of how far the foil shot off upon building pressure inside), did I even make any more yeast cells? I know yeast need oxygen to reproduce.....have I deprived my starter of o2 is whole time? thanks in advance!!
First Yeast Starter Woes???
- Thread starter NCGrayson
- Start date
Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:
No, just a lot of CO2 was dissoved in the liquid. Nothing to do with pressure. If you hadn't been agitating it recently, then a fair amount would have been in suspension. Just like shaking up a soda. You should be fine. Your occasional shaking is a big improvement over just letting it sit there, and adding a stir plate to the equation would mean even more oxygen.
Your starter is actually fermenting right now and that is why it is foaming up when you swirl it as it's in high krausen so let it ride and yes, it's making you more yeast
This - it's working let it be...
NCGrayson
Well-Known Member
Guess I made a decent first starter
12 hours after pitching. if i didn't have to work i would have been staring at it all day and been able to prevent that.....i got halfway up the stairs and smelled beer immediately and knew what happened. oh well!
12 hours after pitching. if i didn't have to work i would have been staring at it all day and been able to prevent that.....i got halfway up the stairs and smelled beer immediately and knew what happened. oh well!
It works better if you install the blow off tube before the krausen hits the ceiling.
Nice and I like that you got 2 carboys filled!
Nice and I like that you got 2 carboys filled!
makomachine
Well-Known Member
NCGrayson said:Guess I made a decent first starter
12 hours after pitching. if i didn't have to work i would have been staring at it all day and been able to prevent that.....i got halfway up the stairs and smelled beer immediately and knew what happened. oh well!
Forgive me for saying it if I'm stating the obvious to you, but you need to be wrapping that carboy up in some form of light protection. For some reason, likely me being bored at work, I'm getting the vibe you were leaving it out in the open.
Had a bucket lid issue early on in my brewing days that resulted in a ceiling mess myself. Crazy stuff and a giant mess when the lid blew! (no blow off, clogged airlock). Blow off tubes on every batch at the start since then.
NCGrayson
Well-Known Member
Nope. No light protection. That is fermenting at my parents house. I live a few miles down the road, but their house is bigger and has the space to keep my brew stuff. That bathroom is on theinside of the house, now windows or light. The light stays on maybe 5 minutes a day when I'm checking on things. And, they're house is a constant 69 degrees. The wyeast I'm using prefers 62-72 F so I'm dandy.
