Lager yeast starter time

I'm brewing the Bohemian Pilsner from BCS and it is my first lager and second time using a starter. With a 5.5gal batch size and OG of 1.056, the Mr. Malty calculator says I need a 2L starter using 2 vials of liquid lager yeast, which I did. I started my lager yeast yesterday at room temp and it is approaching 24hrs and has a lot of bubbling activity right now. BTW, I'm using a stir plate and flask.

I didn't really plan on a long starter time and my wort is sitting in the fridge. I'm a little concerned about contamination because I used an immersion chiller to chill to around 70F, then sealed up the kettle and threw it into the temp controlled freezer at 34F (to avoid any bacterial growth). I forgot about the no-chiller method, will have to do this next time.

I was planning on letting the starter go for 24 hours, then putting into the fridge to flocculate the yeast, decant after 24 hour chill time, then pitch the slurry to my wort. I'll raise the temperature of the fridge to 44F so both wort and starter will be at the same temperature.

So my questions are:

Is 24 hours enough time for a lager yeast starter to propagate before crash cooling? Is 24 hours enough chill time for flocculation?

If not, how do you tell when the starter is ready? The Mr. Malty starter FAQs say that you don't want to select the less flocculant yeast by crash cooling too early, but it doesn't say what are the signs to look for.

Will my wort be okay while my starter is doing its thing?

Thanks,
James

I don't have a stirplate, but isn't this essentially the same as doing a forced ferment? So you could take a hydrometer reading of your starter, and if its at terminal gravity, you can be confident that you've gotten all the cell growth you're going to get out of it.

No idea if 24h is long enough to get all that yeast to floc out. I typically crash my starters for days, both ale and lager.

You're already looking at 48h between sealing the kettle and pitching?

Rundownhouse said:

You're already looking at 48h between sealing the kettle and pitching?

Click to expand...

Yes, I'm looking at 48hr after boil to pitch the yeast.

I ended up waiting until bubbling subsided in my starter, then moved to the fridge. That ended up being about 28 hours in the starter. I'll wait 24 hours, decant, then pitch the slurry. I'm thinking of saving the starter wort, letting that settle, and pitch it later if there's anything left.

JNish said:

Yes, I'm looking at 48hr after boil to pitch the yeast.

I ended up waiting until bubbling subsided in my starter, then moved to the fridge. That ended up being about 28 hours in the starter. I'll wait 24 hours, decant, then pitch the slurry. I'm thinking of saving the starter wort, letting that settle, and pitch it later if there's anything left.

Click to expand...

I would think that is fine. In the future make your starter 2-3 days in advance so you don't have to worry about this.

Pivovar_Koucky said:

In the future make your starter 2-3 days in advance so you don't have to worry about this.

Click to expand...

Yup I will.

I was initially thinking that by the time my wort cooled to pitching temp (44F as recommended by BCS), my starter would be ready. Of course, I didn't thing that I would want to flocculate the yeast instead of pitching the entire starter, which I've done with a stout before. I figured with a pilsner I would want to avoid any off-flavors from the starter wort. Is this typical or have you pitched starters with lagers?

I brew 12g batches, 11g into the fermenters, starting from one vial/pack. My lager starters typically end up being 2.5-3g, so I always decant.