Starter performing poorly; Use my Pacman?

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Willsellout

Willsellout

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So I have a high gravity IPA I'm brewing today and I made a starter yesterday with the WLP001 ale yeast. I used a flask, 3oz of DME and yeast nutrient. Boiled for 5 minutes, cooled to 68 then pitched it the yeast and put it in near my water heater as the temp dropped a little more than I wanted. No action all day yesterday and I check it this morning and no kruesen and no airlock action. I swirled the yeast back into suspension and the airlock let some pressure out, but it seems the yeast just want to fall on the bottom...very little flocculation with this one..so should i use one of my Pacman smack packs on this batch? I don't want anything to screw this one up.

What do y'all think?


Dan
 
Willsellout said:
So I have a high gravity IPA I'm brewing today and I made a starter yesterday with the WLP001 ale yeast. I used a flask, 3oz of DME and yeast nutrient. Boiled for 5 minutes, cooled to 68 then pitched it the yeast and put it in near my water heater as the temp dropped a little more than I wanted. No action all day yesterday and I check it this morning and no kruesen and no airlock action. I swirled the yeast back into suspension and the airlock let some pressure out, but it seems the yeast just want to fall on the bottom...very little flocculation with this one..so should i use one of my Pacman smack packs on this batch? I don't want anything to screw this one up.

What do y'all think?


Dan
Click to expand...

I've read where starters need to boil 10 to 15 minutes. How much water did you use with the DME. I follow John Palmer's method (howtobrew.com) of 1/2 quart of water with 1/2 a cup of DME and a 1/4 tsp. of yeast nutrient and boil for 10 minutes. This produces a starter with a 1.040 gravity.

My last starter was with a WL029 Kolsch. It ate up all the wort overnight, so I did not think it started. This may be the case for you.
 
Starters don't usually show that much activity, as compared to fermentation in the actual beer.

If you can delay brewing by a day or two, try stepping it up once more.
 
Mikey said:
Starters don't usually show that much activity, as compared to fermentation in the actual beer.

If you can delay brewing by a day or two, try stepping it up once more.
Click to expand...

I could delay until next week but I was really looking forward to brewing today. I think I'm going to pitch some pacman and redo this starter for another brew down the line.

I used three cups of water with 3 oz (1/2 a cup) of DME.

Dan
 
Well I smacked my pacman, partially because I am unsure about the starter, but more because I have 5 packs and wanted to use one of them. They say use by June 07 so I might as well start now. I am going to keep this current starter for my next brew.



Dan
 
grnich said:
Did you aerate the starter? Yeast need lots of oxygen at this stage.
Click to expand...


I did for about 5 minutes, plus I poured it through a strainer. It's fermenting, just very slowly.

Dan
 

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