great yeast article - READ IT unless you like crappy beer

Many of you have probably seen this article, but in case you have not I suggest you check it out. It is a really good source of information about yeast propagation and so forth.

http://www.maltosefalcons.com/tech/MB_Raines_Guide_to_Yeast_Culturing.php

Great article.

Now how am I supposed to get any work done this afternoon?

glibbidy said:

Now how am I supposed to get any work done this afternoon?

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Copy paste to WORD download to flashstick or email link to home... OK, just read and print...

Read or work? Hard choice.

Brewpastor said:

Read or work? Hard choice.

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...only if you have a suspense due today...or Monday AM...

homebrewer_99 said:

...only if you have a suspense due today...or Monday AM...

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You sound like you are getting a cold or something...

Am I the only one that thinks this is a huge amount of yeast to grow? He is talking about a 2.5 gallon starter for a 5 gallon wort.

I think I'll have to start saving all my yeast from the primary from now on.

Todd said:

Am I the only one that thinks this is a huge amount of yeast to grow? He is talking about a 2.5 gallon starter for a 5 gallon wort.

I think I'll have to start saving all my yeast from the primary from now on.

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Yeah--realistically, almost all homebrewers underpitch according to this standard, IMHO.

Well, he's talking about a 2.5gal starter based upon the actual amount of viable yeast from homebrewers traditional single-step method of using an airlock on a starter. Now, I assume that he assumes we won't pitch 2.5gallons...just the yeasties that are on the bottom.

He also makes reference to Wyeast packs having only 25% of the yeast cells viable....yikes. I don't know if this is a reference to the old Wyeast packs or the new "100billion" packs.

Exo said:

Well, he's talking about a 2.5gal starter based upon the actual amount of viable yeast from homebrewers traditional single-step method of using an airlock on a starter. Now, I assume that he assumes we won't pitch 2.5gallons...just the yeasties that are on the bottom.

He also makes reference to Wyeast packs having only 25% of the yeast cells viable....yikes. I don't know if this is a reference to the old Wyeast packs or the new "100billion" packs.

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I'm curious how much actual yeast volume he gets from the big starters. For example I had pretty much 8 cups of yeast of my last primary. Should I have pitched the entire thing?

also wondering how much of a difference it will make, heck I know people who pitch 1 pack of dry yeast, dry, and the beer turned out good.

After I wash and seperate my yeast from a primary I get about 4 times the amount of a vial. That's without the added water, just yeast.

homebrewer_99 said:

Copy paste to WORD download to flashstick or email link to home... OK, just read and print...

Click to expand...

I resisted, and printed out all 18 pages for review toinight with an ice cold pilzner!

Probably best that way. Don't forget to pick up document protectors while you're still in the office...

MB stands for Mary Beth - he is a she. Just an FYI

Brewpastor beat me to it. MB is a woman, I have gotton some great strains of yeast from her. I brewed a Mild that I got first place with and now I can't duplicate it because I no longer have that yeast.

That was a really good read, some nice recipe's on the site too!

Exo said:

He also makes reference to Wyeast packs having only 25% of the yeast cells viable....yikes. I don't know if this is a reference to the old Wyeast packs or the new "100billion" packs.

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I think its to the old ones because the volume of the packs he talks about is only 50ml... instead of the 125ml XL smack packs that I've seen.

Yup, I just made a Wyeast 1007 (German Ale) starter in prep for brewing Cheesefood's Caramel Cream on Monday. Package is 125ml / 4.25 fl. oz.

Now I'm waiting on starter lag-time...sigh.

ok, here's a newbie question. Do you have to use malt in a starter, or would Dextrose and honey work? As long as there are yeast nutrients(I assume you get them in tablet form at your LHBS) and a slightly higher ph it should be fine, right? Would it work as good to use 1/2 honey (to up the ph a bit so bacteria dosn't grow) and 1/2 corn sugar, or is malt really the only thing that will work?I know DME is the best choice, but if I don't want to afford DME for the starter would a starter composed of honey and corn sugar work better than just dumping a smack pack into the wort? Just corn sugar? Just honey?

oh yeah, and when pitching the yeast from the starter do you wash it or pitch it all in(bumping the abv slightly )?

Very, very interesting that science stuff. I'm really blown away by the amount of yeast cells produced by constant stirring over just letting the starter sit. I think maybe that I should have kept my most recent starter stirring for longer than I did armed with this info. Also interesting is the claim that aerating with a 2 micron aeration stone into 5 gallons for a minute or two will supersaturate with oxygen if you're using pure O2 as your aerating gas. This I'd love to test... I need to talk a colleague into letting me use the portable O2 sensor he uses for his research to do this test.

That would be a cool test! Boil some batches up with higher and higher gravities and see how the oxygen saturation differs with respect to the time aerating!