Questions about starter for WLP380

Hey gang - I'm brewing an all-grain hefe this weekend (5 to 5.5 gallon batch into the carboy), so a couple of days ago I made a starter with a vial of WLP380:

-120 grams of DME into 1.2 liters of boiling water
- boiled for 15 minutes then cooled to 70 degrees
- poured into a sanitized 2 liter growler and pitched 1 vial of WLP 380 with an expiration date of March 2011
- sanitized foil to cover the top of the growler
- fermented in my ghetto ferm chamber at 68 for 36 hours
- this morning I put in the fridge.

Tonight there is a layer of yeast on the bottom of the growler so looks good.

My questions - since this is a low-flocculating strain, will I be losing too many yeasties if I decant the liquid and just use what has settled on the bottom? And would I have been better off to just keep the whole starter at fermentation temp until pitching it tomorrow afternoon?

As always thanks to the many willing to share their expertise.

If you place it in the fridge, the cold temp will allow all the yeast to settle out regardless of the the flocculation of the strain. However, because you are only making 1.2 L, I would pitch the entire amount in the wort. I only decant if the volume is around 2 L or so. In general, you don't want to pitch more than 5% of the volume of your wort, but you are pretty close to that so I wouldn't worry about decanting the spent wort.

Some yeast take a while to drop. If it's not clear, pitch the lot. Only decant if it is clear liquid.

Thanks. I did end up pitching the entire starter; this morning the fermentation has blown about a pint of wort through the blowoff tube into my pitcher of Starsan.

Congratulations! You've got very happy yeasts there! Yeast starters are great!!

SteveSD said:

Thanks. I did end up pitching the entire starter; this morning the fermentation has blown about a pint of wort through the blowoff tube into my pitcher of Starsan.

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Hey SteveSD,

How did this ferment out? I recently brewed a hefe using this strain and I only have 63% attenuation after 3 weeks.

hollywoodbrew said:

Hey SteveSD,

How did this ferment out? I recently brewed a hefe using this strain and I only have 63% attenuation after 3 weeks.

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I racked to the keg after 14 days; OG was 1.056 and FG was 1.015 for about 73% attenuation. This is a very sessionable hefe right around 5%ABV. Next time I brew this I'll try to keep fermentation in the 62-64 F range (just got a mini-fridge so I can build a ferm chamber), I started it out at 68 but it warmed up to 72 while fermenting and it finished with a little more banana and a little less clove than what I like in a hefe.