URGENT question - please help!

Okay, not urgent in the big picture sense. It's just a batch of beer. But...

I'm doing a PM batch and am currently heating up my strike water for the mash. I made a yeast starter a few days ago, refrigerated it last night, and took it out of the fridge at 6:00 this morning to bring it to room temp. It's been cold in my house today, though, and the starter is still only at 56-57 degrees.

My understanding is that I want the yeast to be as close to the temperature of the cooled wort as possible. The starter is warming up *very* slowly. What's the safest way to speed this process up? I thought of putting it in the sun outside, but it's probably not good to expose the yeast to direct sunlight is it? A heating pad wrapped around the jar? It's a large starter (2.7 liters), so maybe that's why it's taking so long to come to room temp.

Thanks again!

Actually, I've read recently that pitching the starter cool won't hurt a thing. You'll still make beer, the lag time might be a little longer while the yeast get acclimated, but other than that, it should be no problem.

Wrap it with a dark t-shirt and place it in the sun, or make a warm water bath for it to warm up in, just be careful not to raise the temp too quickly or too high. I t won't hurt to pitch it cool, but the yeast may take longer to wake up and get going.

I'm sure the yeast will have warmed up a few more degrees by the time you pitch. FWIW, I pitch at 60F all the time.

Thanks everyone. I'll put it on the porch wrapped in a dark t-shirt. Sounds like it will be fine.

Use the warm water method, temps are easier to control.

you probably have moved forward with whatever you were doing, but did I miss something or were you planning on pitching the entire 2.7 liters? From my understanding the purpose of cooling the starter is to drop the yeast out of suspension and decant off the wort. That being the case you wouldn't have much liquid left and it should warm up pretty quickly.

EuBrew said:

you probably have moved forward with whatever you were doing, but did I miss something or were you planning on pitching the entire 2.7 liters? From my understanding the purpose of cooling the starter is to drop the yeast out of suspension and decant off the wort. That being the case you wouldn't have much liquid left and it should warm up pretty quickly.

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In my harried state I didn't think of this. Of course you're right. What I should have done is decanted the liquid right after bringing it out of the fridge, and left the yeast cake with a little bit of wort. It would have warmed up very quickly, as you say. Live and learn!