Brew day postponed - starter question

I intend on brewing this weekend but may end up having to postpone.
I will be making my starter this week. In the event my brew day is postponed (by a week or two) - whats the best way to store the yeast/starter and what procedure do I follow before pitching ? Do I need to add DME to get it going again ?

Refgrigerate it. The morning of your brewday, bring it to pitching temperature However, if I had to wait another week, I'd just grow more yeast by "stepping up" the starter (unless you are close to overpitching already).

• Chill in fridge overnight
• pour off nasty beer, keeping yeast
• add more DME/water, boiled first

I once kept a starter going for 3 weeks, put it in the fridge for a month, then used it and the beer turned out great.

Cool thanks.

You don't need to pitch a foamy, active starter. You can simply ferment your starter completely and refrigerate it. That will settle the starter yeast into a nice slurry. On brewday, remove the starter some hours before pitching so the yeast temperature equalizes to the wort temperature, decant the spent starter "wort" and measure an appropriate amount of slurry to pitch.

Consult the Mr Malty Pitching Calculator after you brew your starter to estimate how much slurry you'll need to properly pitch your recipe; you may need to step up your starter's size to net enough slurry to do the job on brew day.

Good luck!

Bob

How long will it last in the fridge?

I made a starter on Saturday, brewed Sunday, pitched Monday and there was absolutely no activity at all by Wednesday afternoon. I've never ever waited this long. I panicked, got more yeast and made another starter to repitch. Wouldn't you know it but Wednesday night the original yeast took off like a rocket, so now I have a bottle of started yeast that I don't need, happily fermenting away.

If I let it finish and seal it/refrigerate it, will it last a few weeks? Can I freeze it and then restore it?

thanks - Mark

You don't HAVE to pitch a starter at high krausen, but I get insanely fast activity when I do. I usually make my desired starter size and throw it in the fridge once it is done. One brew day I make a mini starter (2 cups water, 1/2 cup DME), cool it, and pour it on the yeast slurry that I already pour the fermented wort off of. By the time I'm ready to pitch it is at high krausen.

I've also done this, realized I needed to postpone the brew day, and thrown it in the fridge for a day with the sweet wort on top of the yeast slurry and once I brought it up to room temp it fermented as normal.