Need Help On Creating A Yeast Starter From 4-5 Billion Yeast Cells

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jglazer

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I am acquiring 4-5 billion cells of a wild yeast and I obviously need to make a starter and step it up a few times. Question is...do I need to keep a certain ratio of yeast cells to starter wort? Do I just want to throw the 4-5 billion yeast cells in a 1 liter starter then step it up another liter, or with only 4-5 billion cells do I need to make a smaller starter like a .5 liter or .25 liter starter at first and then start to step it up?

Thanks and sorry if this was asked before, I couldn't find it via the search tool...
 
Look at yeastcalc.com for information on making stepped up starters. I make a weaker smaller solution for the first step then go to approximately 1.040 for the rest until I get to my target cell count.
 
I have but I don't see any info on there about making starters from such a little amount of yeast...
 
Sounds about right. I just harvested some Conan yeast and I started with maybe 10 ml from the bottom of a can, which was 1-2 billion cells. I started there with 100 ml starter, then added it to 400 ml, then 1000 ml, then 1700 ml. I haven't used it yet, but it seems to be successful as I got a bunch of yeast from stepping up slowly.

I used this as a guide. Hope that helps.
 
You can use the MrMalty calculator. Since 100% viability assumes 100 billion cells, if you have 5 billion, plug in 5% viability and your starter amount. The "yeast cells needed" field will give you how much you'll get from your starter. Then repeat the process when you step it up.
 
jglazer said:
I am acquiring 4-5 billion cells of a wild yeast and I obviously need to make a starter and step it up a few times. Question is...do I need to keep a certain ratio of yeast cells to starter wort? Do I just want to throw the 4-5 billion yeast cells in a 1 liter starter then step it up another liter, or with only 4-5 billion cells do I need to make a smaller starter like a .5 liter or .25 liter starter at first and then start to step it up?

Thanks and sorry if this was asked before, I couldn't find it via the search tool...
Click to expand...

I wonder if your "in" on the same 4-5 billion cell wild yeast I just acquired yesterday. Did you acquire this from an up and coming brewery located in NC?
 
My estimate is that there is around 4bn cells in a 375ml bottle of bottle conditioned beer.
I always put that first into a 100ml starter and then go for 750ml or 1L. This works very well for me.

Here is an image of a 100ml starter in my 250ml flask on the stir plate taken 48 hours after pitching the dregs of one bottle.

coopersyeastreculture.jpg
 
NcBrewer35 said:
I'm over in the Charlotte/Huntersville area. I am very excited to use that yeast, just not sure yet what I want to make with it.
Click to expand...

I am just making a Brown Mild and a Kentucky Common Ale I think, mainly because the total cost of materials for both of those recipes are less than $20 each. So if the yeast does anything weird I don't really care lol, but I have faith this yeast is going to be real nice.
 
mtnagel said:
Sounds about right. I just harvested some Conan yeast and I started with maybe 10 ml from the bottom of a can, which was 1-2 billion cells. I started there with 100 ml starter, then added it to 400 ml, then 1000 ml, then 1700 ml. I haven't used it yet, but it seems to be successful as I got a bunch of yeast from stepping up slowly.

I used this as a guide. Hope that helps.
Click to expand...

Matt, are you cold crashing/decanting between any of the steps?
 
It was told to me that the conan yeast isn't very flocculant, so to avoid losing any yeast, just add the previous step to the new step. That is until you can't physically fit it anymore. So my last step was ~1800 ml, so I had to crash for 2 days before that step. But I combined all the previous steps into 1 flask without crashing. Not sure how that applies to other yeast, but it is simpler, so I will probably do that with all my commercial bottle/can harvests.
 

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