Starters and ambient temp.

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bad coffee

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I'm about to make a starter for a Belgian. I'm gonna crank up a starter, but the room I usually keep it in gets pretty warm during the day. I can't justify leaving the ac on just for a starter. Will the warm room produce mutant yeast?

I don't think any other room in the house will be cooler than another. The other thing I thought of is putting a water bath under my flask and putting a small fan on it. It would cool down the flask a bit. Is it worth the trouble? I'd have to build a platform for the water bath, so my stir plate could support it.

Really what I need to know is what's the highest temp point you'd feel comfortable making a starter? Ideally, I'd like to have the starter around 70-72*. Right where I want to pitch.

Any suggestions?

B
 
Quite truthfully, you can let your yeast starter get as warm as you , they will be perfectly happy up to 98.6ºF or 37ºC, but any thing over that and they will slow their growth rate. When you are making a starter you are not making beer, so don't be too concerned with temperature control. You won't be drinking the starter, so who cares in the higher temps produce some off flavors. When you add the starter to the wort, the yeast need to be as healthy and as happy as they can be, so they can survive as long a possible to ferment your beer fully and correctly, for yeast Beer is a toxic environment . And what ever transfers to primary from the starter, will be cleaned up by a healthy complete fermentation.

You won't get Mutant yeast because you will not me applying any selective pressure on the yeast buy raising the temp in the range that they naturally live. To select for mutant strains of yeast you would need to add some thing that would slow or stop the growth of yeast that Don't have the mutation.
 
While they yeast may be able to survive and replicate at body temp I think shooting for 77 is ideal and will give you a faster doubling time and yeast that are more healthy.

Edit: The article by Raines-Casselman would agree with this. Is this article stickied somewhere is that not allowed as its outside HBT.com? I always reference it when I'm trying to refine working with starters.
 
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