Need Help With Wheat Yeast Starter

Hello

I have made a 1 l yeast starter for my wheat beer I plan to brew. I am using Wyeast activator 1010 American Wheat. I boiled my light DME and water, cooled it down to room temp. I had expansion of the yeast smack pack. I dumped it into the flask and put my airlock on. 24 hours later I see no bubbling in the lock and it seems that the yeast have all settled out of the solution and have collected on the bottom of the flask. If I stir it, I get vigorous bubbling for a few seconds. How can I tell if my starter is viable or not?

Thanks

If you had expansion in the smack pack and get bubbling when you swirl the starter, they should be doing just fine. One thing you should do is get rid of the airlock on the starter. Yeast need oxygen so just a piece of aluminum foil or something sitting loosely on the top of the flask is sufficient.

Be patient. I just brewed a wheat using this yeast for the first time. Did my standard 2000ml starter on the stirplate and there was very little if any activity whereas I normally get some krausen and other times quite a bit depending on the yeast. It really did not show any signs of life at all for a good 15-20 hours after it had been on the stirplate. Chilled it and pitched it and it took off quite well after several hours. Beware of the strong sulphur smell. I was not prepared for it this morning when I went to check on things and it caught me off guard. A normal byproduct of this yeast from what I have read. Montanaandy

Montanaandy said:

Beware of the strong sulphur smell. I was not prepared for it this morning when I went to check on things and it caught me off guard. A normal byproduct of this yeast from what I have read. Montanaandy

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Yep. I fermented my last wheat with this yeast a bit too cool and the beer still has some sulfur to it many months later.