Technical starter question

Sorry to beat a dead horse, but I wanted a breakdown of the life cycle of a yeastie, the size a starter should be relative to the purchased yeast(to a white labs vial or a smack pack for example), if 2 or 3 steps would be best,(making a starter for your starter and so on) and why. I know there are threads that pertain to this but I am lazy, and I thought that there are always enough newbies around who would not otherwise find this info. Thanks.

All the answers to those questions (and some yeast questions you didn't know to ask) are found at www.mrmalty.com. Jamil explains all that stuff in detail and even has a great online calculator so you can figure out just how to make your starters.

Wayne
Bugeater Brewing Company

Yeast life cycle:

Adaptation Phase (Lag Time):
Yeast adjust to there new environment in the wort and reproduce like crazy. They use up available oxygen here. Good healthy yeast has lots of reserves to get though this phase healthy and ready for the next one. Once they have reproduced as much as they are going to there should be a significant yeast count in the wort and they stop reproducing.

Attenuative Phase:
This is where fermentation happens. Yeast having adapted to the environment get busy easting sugar, nutrients and producing CO2 and alcohol. The yeast are stocking up good stuff to get ready for more reproduction.


A starter helps the yeast get a leg up on the adaptation phase. This helps in a number of ways but primarily:
- Proves the yeast is viable.
- All yeast in the starter are already adapted to a basic wort environment and will quickly get into fermenting (lower lag time).
-Lower lag time helps fight off infections dramatically. If there are trillions of yeast cells running around in your wort, there isn't much space or nutrition available for
most infections to get a toe hold.
-Makes you more resilient to under aeration and low nutrient levels which would otherwise cause a stuck fermentation.

Thanks! Excellent advice both of you.