yeast floculation

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dest149

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Hey, so I am getting my beer brew kit tomorrow along with the recipe. Tell me how this sounds.
Start tomorrow (Friday)
- Activate liquid yeast until pouch inflates ~3-5 hrs
- Make a starter 1L (this will be weird because I only have LME that comes with the recipe kit is it okay if I use some of the recipe's LME for the starter)
- Shake every so often to mimic stirring plate
- Put on ice to floculate (is it okay to put the yeasties on ice or is this too harsh to cold shock?)
- Decant and pitch the slurry to the wort I will make on Saturday

Any suggestions/criticisms etc? Particularly if you could answer the parts about the cold and the use of the recipe kits LME
 
You don't have enough time without a stirplate. You will need a day or better yet 2 and possibly longer for the starter. Then it will take most of a day in the fridge to settle the yeast and a couple of hours to let it warm to pitching temperatures.

Pushing it you could make the starter and pitch the whole thing at high krausen.

Remember, this is a tiny beer and the yeast may take 24-48 hours just to start fermentation.

Edit. IMO if you took LME from the kit the amounts left in the kit are not right.
 
So how should I make a starter? And I want to floculate because I don't want to add 1L of bad beer.
 
If you want to do it right, order yourself some light DME to make starters. I agree that you shouldn't take any LME from your recipe. That will throw off your gravity, among other things. I like to let my starters ferment completely for 2 days or so, then pop it in the fridge overnight. On brew day you can decant (leave a small amount of liquid) and let it warm to your pitching temp.
 
It's going to send them in to a yeast nap. If you're making a starter today and brewing tomorrow, you barely have time for the starter to replicate and reach its prime, let alone time to cold crash and decant.

With this little of time, make the starter and shake it, often. Keep it at room temperature, don't put it on ice. Then pitch the whole starter into the beer tomorrow. I don't decant if it's a 1L starter in a 5 gallon batch. That's like 5% of your total volume, it won't affect the final product. When you get into bigger starters you need to start considering decanting (and making the starter sooner!).
 
Make starter. 2 pints of water and 0.25 lbs of LME. Shake as often as you can, but no need to be anal about it.

Pitch whole thing when ready.

2 pints in 40 will not make much difference, but will be really good for your yeast.
 
I usually start my starter on Tuesday or Wednesday for a Saturday brew day.

I would say you need almost 24 hours for all your yeast to flocculate out in a fridge.
 
You need to just give yourself more time. Trying to cram all of this stuff into the time you allotted is just going to give you headaches, late nights, and potentially bad beer.

You don't need to activate the pouch when making your starter. Make it at LEAST 24 hours in advance, 2 days is better. Then chill it an ADDITIONAL 24 hours to floc out the yeast. The day of your brewing, decant off the beer leaving the yeast on the bottom with a bit of beer to resuspend in, and leave out to warm up to pitching temps.

Don't rush it, you'll just end up with stressed yeast and not enough cells. An underpitch of poor quality yeast is a great way to start off an untasty beer.
 
I agree on the "don't push things" and disagree on underpitching -- I've made starters from next to nothing, and pitched next to nothing. So long as you allow the yeast to make new yeast babies nice and easy like, you'll be fine.

That said, you're pushing things so hard and fast that it sounds like you're trying to have a disaster on your hands. I've had to dump 5 gallons of bad beer -- try to avoid my mistakes. Pouring that much beer down the drain should be a crime ...
 
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