Can I save a yeast starter?

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trainfever

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Last week I bought a flask to try my hand at making a yeast starter. I made a 2000ml starter and it came out fine. I intended on using it on the batch I brewed yesterday which was only a 2 1/2 gallon batch. Now the problem is that I used a 3 gallon PET water bottle as the fermenter and if I used the whole starter, there wouldnt be any headspace for fermentation, so I only used half the starter. Now I have 1000ml of the starter left. Can I put that in a sterile jar or maybe split it up in some yeast vials and save it?
 
Yep. In my mind, that's actually the best way to culture yeast rather than washing stressed yeast. Grow up a big starter, and save some off to the side before pitching.
 
What would be the best way to save it? The starter is still in the flask, and there is still activity in the airlock which means if I put it in a vial or jar now, the carbonation will build up, or will the yeast go dormant quickly from the cold in the refigerator?
 
PseudoChef said:
Yep. In my mind, that's actually the best way to culture yeast rather than washing stressed yeast. Grow up a big starter, and save some off to the side before pitching.

I have been thinking the same thing, and picked up a bunch of small canning jars. I am going to be making a new starter today, and beginning with that one, I will be jarring up part of each new starter to save for later.
 
What I did recently in a similar situation with 1L starter was to let it ferment out completely, stick it in the fridge to flocc the yeast, decant off enough liquid to get it below about 12 fl oz, and then swirl the rest and pour into a beer bottle, cap it and store it in the fridge. It was refrigerated for a week this way, then I took it out before brewing, slightly popped the cap to vent pressure, and let it warm up to room temp on the counter. There was a little pressure, but not much. I pitched it into a batch that was around 1.060 OG, and fermentation took off within about 12-24 hours as expected.

In the future, if your starter is too big to pitch fully into your batch and you WANT to pitch all the yeast, just stick it in the fridge as I said above, and then once it settles you can decant a lot of the starter wort off and pitch the more concentrated yeast slurry.
 
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