How can i tell if my Yeast starter is ready to pitch?

I am planning to brew a Racer 5 clone tomorrow and am wondering how i can tell if my yeast starter is ready.

This morning, i made a starter using 1 Cup Light DME and 900ml of water and some yeast nutrient (Per morebeer.com's recipe). I cooled it to 70 degrees and pitched in my vial of White Labs WLP051 California V yeast as per the recipe i plan to follow. After i pitched the yeast i shook the living crap out of it to aerate it and soon left the house to go shopping with the wife. I left the house around 11am and returned around 8pm. When i came home, there was a yeast cake (or so i think) on the bottom of the flask. It was noticeably different in color. I read that active fermentation is usually done within the first few hours. I've since shaken the slurry, but i want to make sure the yeast will be ready to pitch tomorrow. How can i tell its ready?

i pitch my yeast starters at high krausen - works well for my. Clean, quick, and complete fermentations.

General "rule" is with no stir plate just swirl the starter everytime you walk by it. High krausen should be around 24 hours so you should be in good shape. Just give her a swirl everytime you think of it between now and when you're ready to pitch.

I did exactly 2 starters this way and they were fine, then I got a stir plate because it was kind of a pain to swirl all the time and the stir plate allows you to make a smaller volume starter.

If you plan enough in advance you can cool the starter in the fridge so the yeast drops out then decant most of the liquid off on brew day and let it warm up to room temp prior to pitching. This method allows you to pitch just the yeast and a small amount of the spent wort so you don't throw off your recipe too much.

Here is a picture of my yeast this morning. What do you all think?

looks good to me, just keep swirling it occasionally until you're ready to pitch.

BREW ON!!

yikes, that looks like an aweful light of wort for a 1000 mL flask. Get that yeast moving before you pitch.

dub said:

Here is a picture of my yeast this morning. What do you all think?

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Is 48 hours too long for a yeast starter to be sitting? Mine looks similar to above but less wort content and I'm at about 22 hours now. I want to brew tomorrow not tonight due to the forecast.

natefrog255 said:

Is 48 hours too long for a yeast starter to be sitting? Mine looks similar to above but less wort content and I'm at about 22 hours now. I want to brew tomorrow not tonight due to the forecast.

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I typically do 36 hours, then I put it in the fridge for the night before the brewday. Then I take it out of the fridge, decant the liquid, and place it on the counter until I'm ready to pitch it.

This is from MrMalty.com

Wyeast says starters reach their maximum cell density within 12-18 hours, which sounds about right to me. Some sources suggest that maximum cell densities are not achieved until 24 hours and others as much as 36, but the return on waiting that long is minimal. Let's just say that the bulk of the yeast growth is done by 12-18 hours. I like to pitch starters while they're still very active and as soon as the bulk of reproduction is finished, usually within 8 to 18 hours. This is really convenient, because I can make a starter the morning of the brew day or the night before the brew day and it is ready to go by the time the batch of wort is ready.

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It is possible for a starter to double the cell count in as little as two hours (best case scenario.)

I have had good luck with following John Palmer's instructions.

Okay, so mine has been 24 hours, has the yeast cake at the bottom thus I think it's good to go BUT I am not able to brew until tomorrow afternoon/early evening. Should I put in the fridge or just leave another 24 hours? If I put in the fridge, do I take it out as I begin my brew process?

I assume the fridge will just make the yeast go dormant but won't kill them off. They'll come alive when the temp rises. Correct me if I am wrong.

Sorry if these are noob questions.

I wouldn't worry about chilling it. A day or two after FG is fine at room temp (but not on a stir plate.) The yeast will still be reasonably healthy. You could chill and decant though if you wanted but I would not bother with that with a small starter.

^ Thanks for the information!

Putting the starter in the fridge shouldn't be required, but it might be a good idea still. If you do put it in the fridge, then take it out early enough for it to warm up to room temp. Maybe an hour or two before it's time to pitch. You don't want to shock the yeast with a huge jump in temperature.

Also, just a forewarning, I've had airlock issues when throwing a starter into the fridge. When my starter got cold, the pressure inside decreased enough to suck the star san in the airlock down into my starter. I supplemented the fermentation of that batch with a fresh packet of dry yeast.

So ideally a good idea is to do the starter at like 7PM CST and then prep to brew the next day late afternoon/early evening. That would give the starter a good 18-24 hours to do its thing and that should be sufficient. I do not have a stir plate but am considering getting one. Currently I am just using a drilled stopper with airlock.

The main reason to cold crash in the fridge isn't to keep the yeast longer, but to get the yeast to settle out and compact so you don't have to put so much 'beer' into your wort when you pitch your yeast. I don't know if it has any effect on color and taste, but I'd rather not pour 1.5-2L of liquid into my 5 gallon batch of beer. I'm much happier with just enough liquid to slurry up the yeast. I also don't use an airlock, just sanitized foil over the top of the flask.

dub said:

Here is a picture of my yeast this morning. What do you all think?

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Is that 100 g of dme into lt and 1 pack of dry yeast ? Did you use all that in 23 lt brew ? Dio you think it doubled in size. Great money saver ,looking into it also

Mark Mc said:

Is that 100 g of dme into lt and 1 pack of dry yeast ? Did you use all that in 23 lt brew ? Dio you think it doubled in size. Great money saver ,looking into it also

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Welcome to our Homebrew forums!

Please mind, you're answering a 13 year old post/thread, there has not been any activity since July of 2012. The member who started the thread has not been around here since May of 2016.

He used a cup of DME (around 1/3 of a pound, or 150 grams) in 900 ml water. That's a bit strong for a typical starter, although it seemed to have worked very well!
Generally it's recommended to use 100 grams DME per 1 liter (1000 grams) of water (1 : 10). That makes a typical starter wort yielding a 1.037 SG.

White Labs WLP051 California V is a liquid yeast. In 2010 it came in a plastic vial, holding about 35-40 ml of pure yeast. Nowadays most of White Labs' yeast comes in Pure Pitch packs, containing around the same amount of yeast, but that (special) packaging keeps the yeast much fresher than the vials did.

When using liquid yeast, making starters is encouraged, in some cases, mandatory. The main reason is, yeast is a living organism, it loses viability with time, even in cold (refrigerated) storage. Not only do starters grow more yeast, they also revitalize the existing cells.

Dry yeast:
When you're using dry yeast, there's no need to make a starter. Just sprinkle the content of the pouch onto your chilled wort in the fermenter. One 11 gram pouch should be enough to inoculate around 5.5 gallons of up to 1.060 OG wort.

No lie I run my starters till they are all done, when krausen falls and then give it another day to clean up whatever sugars are left. The whole 24 hr rule doesnt always work for certain yeasts like 3068 and wlp 530, those are slow to grow but when they do, very violent lol.

A WLP 530 starter from a few weeks ago. A bit before it escaped!