Starter question - holy foam batman

Hi All,
Question about this starter - is something wrong with it? I used ~1200ml of water with 104g of DME and ended up having just about exactly 1000ml of fluid after boil and adding some of my washed yeast.

The yeast is WPL400. Is this a known issue with this yeast that it's that happy it explodes at about 24 hours or is there something wrong in here?

This is my 4th starter so far and nothing like this happened before. Did I do something wrong?

That is normal. All of your starters should look like that.

How'd I know from just reading the post title that this thread had to do with wlp400? The yeast is notorious for its need of head space but its one of my favorites. I don't do more then 800-900ml without fermcap.

Ah, thanks guys! The first one of this strain did have a bit of a head but it wasn't this big. My other starters were nothing like this though. It's a 2000ml flask so I thought I'd have had more than enough room for it; i'm glad i used a stopper and airlock on this one cause the foil would have blown off!

I never make a starter without fermcap. Hell just the pain it saves with no boil overs on the stove is worth it, but it keeps the krausen down on the ferment as well.

And the dumb question of the evening? What's fermcap. I'm going to look it up now

earwig said:

That is normal. All of your starters should look like that.

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Not necessarily. I have made 14 starters and only one did that. Using a stirplate often keeps the foam down. Of the 14 about 9 has little or no foam.

pwortiz said:

And the dumb question of the evening? What's fermcap. I'm going to look it up now

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You'll find plenty of info on it. Anti foaming agent. Some use it in the main boil as well, but I only use it in starters. Nothing worse than a volcano of wort pouring out of the top of an Erlenmeyer all over the stove top.

kh54s10 said:

Not necessarily. I have made 14 starters and only one did that. Using a stirplate often keeps the foam down. Of the 14 about 9 has little or no foam.

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hmm ok. I don't have a stirplate and don't use fermcap. Mine are always almost blowing through the airlock/blowoff.

I currently don't use fermcap and I don't have a stir plate. I do oxygenate with pure O2 and use canned starter wort. Wlp400 is the only yeast starter I've had overflow. That Yeast has a crazy personality one minute it will throw a huge head then the next sitting there doing nothing. It is also SLLOOOWWW! but well worth the wait. It makes a mighty fine beer. This is just a theory but I have observed that wlp400 dosent seem to like head pressure while it ferments. I have now been just using the blow off tube believing that its easier for the O2 to excape, though it may not considering I'm not the expert on the subject.

crackhead7 said:

I currently don't use fermcap and I don't have a stir plate. I do oxygenate with pure O2 and use canned starter wort. Wlp400 is the only yeast starter I've had overflow. That Yeast has a crazy personality one minute it will throw a huge head then the next sitting there doing nothing. It is also SLLOOOWWW! but well worth the wait. It makes a mighty fine beer. This is just a theory but I have observed that wlp400 dosent seem to like head pressure while it ferments. I have now been just using the blow off tube believing that its easier for the O2 to excape, though it may not considering I'm not the expert on the subject.

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THIS is definitely something I had wondered. Previous mentions of "knowing it was gonna be about WLP400" just due to the title alluded to this. The mention of how slow this strain is is even more of interest and explains my previous experience with it - i.e. it was my 2nd starter, i left it there for 24 hours and it looked way too active to be complete. I ended up pitching the whole starter because it was still fizzing away by the time I had finished my brewing - and that was after putting it in the fridge for 24 hours! It was a Celis White clone and it'll be ready on Friday for it's first taste test; we'll find out if I messed anything up.

But, now I know for this strain: give it at least 48 hours on the stirplate (just chucked it in the fridge this morning) so it can finish. Looking forward to seeing how this handles the AHS Honey Hibiscus!

Thanks all for the replies.

I don't even bother trying to cold crash this yeast to decant and pitch. Its just stays in suspension far to long. If your worried about adding the starter wort I would and have consider washing from a previous batch and just pitching the slurry instead of making a starter.

No worries from my side about pitching the wort - there's a lot of back and forth on whether to do that on here but I'm fairly neutral about it. I did want to post the pic though of what it looked like this AM after taking out of the fridge. From a process perspective, I know how to work it all finally - with this strain anyway. So, if I need to, I can decant. I'm actually going to brew and get another starter of this going today for a buddy of mine that is planning to use it on Sunday. That one will NOT be cold crashed.

Thanks again for all the feedback!