Starter, Dump It All In?

I started my WLP300 yesterday with 1 pint of wort and a vial of liquid yeast. It is at hour 24 and at HIGH krausen, should I just dump it all in? Much of the yeast is suspended..???

I vote fridging it until the yeast fall out, pouring off most of the beer from the top of the yeast and letting it warm back up as you brew. AHS says to dump the whole thing, but if you've got a 1 quart starter, 5% of your batch is now starter which is kind of gross (gross as in DME, unhopped and full of yeast reproduction byproducts).

Yes, if it's at high krausen, pitch it all in. If I make my starters in advance, I let it sit and then decant the spent wort. But if it's active, all the "good" yeast is in the liquid- so dump it in!

It all goes in, thanks!!

Um, this is my first REAL Heffe... I am chilling the wort and there was a CLUMP of protien and trub that surfaced... this is going to be an interesting ferment I think ...

UTDoug said:

I vote fridging it until the yeast fall out, pouring off most of the beer from the top of the yeast and letting it warm back up as you brew. AHS says to dump the whole thing, but if you've got a 1 quart starter, 5% of your batch is now starter which is kind of gross (gross as in DME, unhopped and full of yeast reproduction byproducts).

Click to expand...

Mmmm. yeast reproduction byproducts.

The stuff in the sheets.

I do the decant method, but from what I understand it's important to let the starter totally and fully ferment so tha it can go through the stage of building up glycol reserves. If you chill to soon just to make the yeast settle out, you may have weak yeast going into your beer. Leave it 36-48hr to be sure, then fridge for a day and decant. Sometimes I'll boil the wort for 10m in the kettle, then pull off a quart and chill it in the sink really quickly, and pitch that into the yeast to get it started. It's another hour and a half later before it goes into the full. oxygenated wort, and though I'm not sure it makes a diff, it make me feel fuzzy, so I do it.

I pitched 1 pint of starter (yeast and wort) into the brew. It was only a 24 hour old starter, so I didnt want to chill it. Next time I will start my starter days in advance, then chill it, then decant. It was at high krausen and I had fermentation in 8 hours. Now at day 10 it is almost finished!

I think if you want the quickest take off and to take best advantage of a starter pitch the whole thing in at high krausen. That way you get all of the yeast at their most active state. Chilling the starter puts the yeast back into their dormant state which is what you just woke them out of with the starter.
Now if due to timing your yeast krausen has already fallen then you probably won't lose much by chilling because most of the yeast have already fallen out of suspension.

Craig

This is an interesting thread to me because I am preparing for a Hefe this weekend and was going to start my WLP320 starter around 48 hours before I pitch and would love to know what yeast you used Pol?

I am planning on 1/4 lbs. of DME and WLP320 with a 1 litre flask. I'll start with a 1.040 OG of water and boil then pitch the vial of yeast and cap it off with airlock. I plan on pitching at the 900 ml mark. Is this sane?

Am I missing anything?

After seeing The Pols Hefeweizen fermenting and just loving Widmer Hefes I decided that would be my next batch. Thanks for the inspiration Pol!! :rockin:

-- Trev

I decant if the yeast have all fermented out, otherwise, it all goes in.