Could you forgo making a new starter every time you used washed yeast?

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merkinman

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If you pitched a greater quantity of washed yest slurry, could you forgo making the new starter? I typically collect slurry from the carboy after pouring off excess beer. I use these for three generations and then buy new smackpacks, make a new starter and start the process all over again. I never use slurry that is more than six months old.

I see how easy washing is, but wonder if it is worth the cost of making a new starter every time. I also see how many people advocate the practice, so I wonder if there is an advantage over my current methods that I am not seeing.

:fro:
 
You probably could just pitch more slurry, but using a starter requires 1/2 cup of DME. That's probably only costing you pennies, so if your concern is cost, I don't see why making a starter is a problem.

Personally the main advantage I see with a starter is less lag time between pitching and active fermentation.
 
As someone who just pitched a large month-old slurry and suffered through almost 2 days of lag time, I will advise against doing this.
 
When using a starter, pitching washed yeast, etc. the primary goal is to pitch the correct amount of healthy yeast (see this for the correct starter size and/or how much yeast you should use for re-pitching). So if you have the yeast from a previous batch, IMO, it does not make any sense to use less and make a starter. However, if you want the yeast to be active you can do a small starter.

What I do is wash my yeast and save in the fridge until ready to use again. On brew day I get the correct amount ready (using the above link), and then run off .5-1L of extra wort after the mash is over. I boil and chill that and throw my yeast in there. By the time I am ready to pitch, that is at high krausen.

EDIT: But, I have skipped the small starter step with excellent results. I really only use this small starter step if I have been storing the yeast for a while (maybe like 2+ weeks).
 
I think I am using waaaay too much DME then. Whenever I make a starter, I use a ratio of one cup DME to one quart water. Do you make very small little starters to wake up the washed yeast slurry?
 
I think I am using waaaay too much DME then. Whenever I make a starter, I use a ratio of one cup DME to one quart water. Do you make very small little starters to wake up the washed yeast slurry?

That sounds like too much alright. Here is a calculator: http://brew.stderr.net/starter_wort_calc.html.

I don't make a small starter. I use Mr Malty's calculator http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html to calculate how big a starter I need to pitch into my beer. I use that volume, an SG of 1.040 and the date the yeast was harvested to determine how much slurry to pitch into the starter and then let it go 24-36 hours, crash chill decant and pitch.

GT
 
+1 for doing a starter when using washed yeast. I do a 1L using 4oz of DME. Should probably do a 2L but equipment only allows for 1L at the moment.
 
I think I am using waaaay too much DME then. Whenever I make a starter, I use a ratio of one cup DME to one quart water. Do you make very small little starters to wake up the washed yeast slurry?
That looks about right to me. I weigh my DME, and use 100g per qt. 100g is slightly less than 1 cup.

As Revvy said, if the yeast is more than 2 - 3 days old, I would always make a new starter.

-a.
 
Repitching slurry from one batch to the next is SOP in the vast majority of microbreweries, where it's routinely done for ten generations or more. As others have said, if the time between propagations gets over a week or so, you'll probably need to increase the cell count via a new starter.

As a general rule of thumb, 1/3 of the slurry from a recent fermentation is about what's required to ferment the next batch at the same gravity. (Assuming adequate aeration.)
 
I just made a batch of IPA yesterday, and used my washed yeast for the first time.

I washed this yeast back in April according to Bernie's post, and ended up with 4 pint jars w/about 1/2" of yeast collected at the bottom of each. I made my starter with 200g of extra light DME w/2L of water and one jar of my washed yeast (sans beer on top of jar). This was done the day before brewing. The starter looked just fine, but since the washed yeast was from 2 months ago, I got concerned (perhaps unnecessarily) about viability since this IPA had an OG of 1.070, so I ended up using another jar of yeast at the last minute. The starter only used one, so the second jar went straight into the chilled wort along with the starter.

I checked this morning (~12 hrs after pitching), and was happy to see a blizzard of activity! I'm not sure if I needed to use both jars, but I wanted to make sure I didn't under-pitch.

I also had thoughts about just using 2 jars of washed yeast instead of making a starter. If it were for a smaller beer (not that 1.070 is HUGE), I probably would have just used 2 jars and no starter, but again I wanted to make sure I had enough yeast so I made the starter as well. I also factored in the age of my washed yeast.

Not very scientific, but hopefully my IPA will come out well!
 
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