old yeast cake or slow starter

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

BlackE1

Well-Known Member
Joined
Sep 15, 2008
Messages
82
Reaction score
2
here is my situation. i am bottling a honey bee ale today that was brewed with 1056 propagated from a smack pack. I have washed 1056 that i made a starter with yesterday morning.

The starter does not seem to be taking off as fast as i had hoped. The washed yeast was in the fridge for 4 months.
The honey bee yeast cake has been sitting with beer on it for just over 2 months.

What is my best bet. Not brew at all and wash the yeast cake after bottling.
Brew the IPA i wanted to today and use the starter and hope it takes off.
Brew the IPA and pitch on to the yeast cake and hope it takes off.
Brew the IPA and pitch on to the yeast cake and pour the starter in.

I have dry yeast in case non of the yeast take off.
 
The starter does not seem to be taking off as fast as i had hoped. The washed yeast was in the fridge for 4 months.

What was the amount of yeast you used to make the starter? What size starter?

The honey bee yeast cake has been sitting with beer on it for just over 2 months.

2 months in a fridge? 2 months at room temp? Primary? Secondary?

I would go with the "fresher" yeast myself, but if that beer has been on the cake for 2 months, then that yeast is all but shut down. Even if you pitched all of it, it'd still be awhile before you saw an activity due to the yeast being dormant. Or possibly autolyzed after 2 months.
 
the yeast starter was 2 liter with 2 cups dme, with three pint jars of washed yeast (not sure how much it actually was).

The 2 month old yeast was at room temp in the primary.
 
How are you measuring activity in your starter? It probably is going just fine, I'd use that. Starters don't usually show signs of activity like a fully fermenting batch does.
 
usually when make a starter it will foam even on my stir plate as well as lighting in color. I think i am just trying to rush the process. I usually make it 2 to 3 days ahead of time but i forgot in this case.
 
the starter is now showing signs of fermentation everything should work out.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top