Stir Plate Questions...

Ok, so I received a stir plate as a gift and I want to know if I am using it properly...

I am not too concerned with propogating yeast, but mostly worried about pitching a healthy batch of yeast (most of my beers are ~ 1.050).


1. Day ONE: Smack a pack of room-temperature Wyeast and let it ferment inside packet - leave at room temperature.

2. Day TWO: Boil 750ml of water (in a 1L Pyrex flask) with ~75 grams of DME to make a ~.040 starter.

3. Remove from heat and add foil to cover flask.

4. When cooled to ~65-70°F, add yeast culture and put on stir plate - adjust speed to produce a minor vortex.

5. Day THREE: After ~24 hours of continuous stir-plate-vortex-activity, put in refrigerator to drop yeast out of suspension.

6. Day FOUR: BREWDAY - Take flask out of refrigerator and allow to warm to room temperature (~65-70°F). Brew batch of beer, and when ready to pitch, decant liquid from flask and add settled yeast to primary.

Am I doing this right?!?


I am about to brew my 12th All-Grain batch, and I am excited to add this step as part of my regular process.

I am grateful for ANY and ALL feedback!

Yep everything looks good. The only thing I would do, IMHO, is that Day One as you have it written, is not important. I would smack it a couple of hours prior to pitching into the starter wort. Plus, if I was to crash and decant, I would likely let it sit on the stri plate for 2 days to ensure it fermented out completely. There is nothing at all wrong with the way you plan on doing it though.

Just make sure that pack does swell. I don't know if I'd say that day one isn't important, but I'd say if it swells in 3 or 4 hours, proceed as planned. But sometimes it will take a day or two or even 3 to swell. So if you only give it 3 hours and it doesn't swell, or give it 24 or 48 hours and it doesn't swell, what do you do? I'd suggest not leaving yourself that short of a time frame. I usually give a starter around 5 days to a week. Especially if you're going to chill and decant. If i'm brewing on a saturday, and I know I'm stepping it up, I'll start the previous saturday, or sunday. I'll smack it, then once it's swelled, I'll start the starter wort, and pitch the smack pack. If I'm stepping it up, I'll give it 24 hours, add it to the stepped up wort, give it another 24, and toss it in the fridge. On brewday I'll take it out of the fridge, decant, and set it aside for pitch time.

If there's not enough time to do all that, you could of course not even bother waiting for it to swell, add it to the starter wort, give it 24 hours, and pitch the whole starter the next day. It works either way, you just have to know what to look out for. Once you do a successful starter, you'll know what it's supposed to look like after a day on the plate.

Good luck with your plate, it's become one of my favorite toys.

+1 on a sound yeast start plan, the write up is almost exactly the way I do my starters.

Stir plate + yeast starter = healthy fermentation, which means you will see good results.

David

I would disagree with mickey only to the issue of the smack pack swelling. I have had many, many smack packs not swell up at all and have had no issues. The smack pack swelling doesn't tell me anything other than a little gas pressure is being built up. The only thing the smack pack has is a little starter wort and a little nutrient inside the little packet that ruptures when you smack it. But you are doing the same thing by making a starter.

I'll see if I can find the video, but theres a youtube video which Wyeast did, stating the max you want to do a starter for is 36hours.

use caution, the stir plate really kicks up the yeast action.

i just used mine for the first time last night (a 1.5 liter starter of 1.040 O.G. in a 2 liter flask). this morning i awoke to the smell of yeast and the left overs from what could only be described as a yeast volcano. there was thick, pasty yeast all of the stir plate and the counter. i wonder how much i lost.

in the past i could do a 1.5 liter starter with little trouble in this same flask; not any more. good thing i also got a 4 liter flask for x-mas. i will be using that even for small starters in the future.

I try to make the vortex as being as possible without throwing the bar. That way I don't wind up with the yeast volcano, BrewMore had.

I have also been reading a lot about adding some yeast nutrient to the starter. Is this necessary?

+1 on not waiting for it to swell. I think on Wyeasts website it says you dont need to wait for it to swell if your making a starter. Your method is almost exactly what I did last Wednesday. Smack the pack, let it swell slightly while I prepared and cooled starter,pitched yeast and put on stirplate till Saturday, chilled overnight, took it out during my mash, I didn't decant I suck the beer off the top with a turkey bastor. Pitched into my Belgian strong ale with o.g. of 1.090 and 8 hours later it was chugging away.

bh10 said:

I'll see if I can find the video, but theres a youtube video which Wyeast did, stating the max you want to do a starter for is 36hours.

Click to expand...

I did see a youtube video from one of Wyeast's lab techs. His comment was that usually starters are done within 36 hours. He then jokingly commented that sometimes they get people that tell them they made a 1 pint starter and left it on the stir plate for 5 days. His comment was that besides the starter being way too small, leaving the yeast warm, on the stir plate with all that available oxygen, the yeast will burn up all of their reserves, which is not healthy for the yeast.

One other thing he did mention on the video, which I didn't know, was that a 2 liter starter would be the appropriate size to roughly double the cell count.

BigB said:

I did see a youtube video from one of Wyeast's lab techs. His comment was that usually starters are done within 36 hours. He then jokingly commented that sometimes they get people that tell them they made a 1 pint starter and left it on the stir plate for 5 days. His comment was that besides the starter being way too small, leaving the yeast warm, on the stir plate with all that available oxygen, the yeast will burn up all of their reserves, which is not healthy for the yeast.

One other thing he did mention on the video, which I didn't know, was that a 2 liter starter would be the appropriate size to roughly double the cell count.

Click to expand...

That was the one, thanks.

How I do mine for a normal sized beer. (1.054 was the last)

Night before I brew. Smack pack, make starter wort. I usually make one liter in a 2 L flask. Cover flask and let it cool overnight.

Get up, make coffee, pour smack pack into flask, put on stir.

Brew. Cool, Pitch the whole starter. The yeast is either at it's high krausen our pretty close, depending on my brew schedule. Either way I'm pitching healthy active yeast.

B