Making a yeast starter from wort of beer to be pitched

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wedge421

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Im going to br brewing up an Oktoberfest this weekend and wanted to know if i could u the wort from that beer to make a starter to be pitched in that beer. The plan was/is to brew the 10 gallons, chill it, make a 4L starter from it and pitch it 2 days later. Is this ok to do?
 
Not only is it OK, it's pretty common, especially in no-chill circles since you're sitting around waiting for the wort to cool anyway.
Usually referred to as RWS (Real Wort Starter).
 
Sounds like a plan. Just make sure you have a cold place to store the wort. I'd be nervous about leaving it at ferment temps if you're not pitching right away.
 
Im going to chill it down to 70F put it in my Fermenator and then put it in my ferm fridge which will be set to 50F. By the time its at 50F in a day or so the starter should be ready.
 
What about aeration. Should i aerate with O2 when i put the wort in the fermentor or aerate when im going to add the starter?
 
That sounds pretty much like what I do. 10 minutes into the boil I pull a 2L flask for my starter. At this point the hot break has all ready occured and the wort remains unhopped. I chill the rest of my wort with an immersion chiller, flush the carboy with CO2 before I siphon the wort in, then flush the headspace with CO2 after. I pitch the 2L starter into my wort 24 hours later. Since I pitch the whole starter, I only use O2 at the beginning of the starter, I don't swirl or stirplate so I don't oxidize it, and I grow the starter at the same fermentation temps to avoid excessive esters and alcohols.
Since I pitch the whole starter I want it to be the same grain bill as the wort. I don't like the idea of crash cooling the starter and then decanting for a couple of reasons. I don't think you can really crash out all the yeast in 24 or 48 hours, definetly not the lower flocculating strains, like a kolsch. And I don't like getting the yeast all ready to go at fermentation temps, then dropping the temp down to make them dormant again, only having to raise the temp right back up again to pitch. These temperature fluctuations have got to stress the yeast at least a little bit.
We all got our own ways of making a starter, and in the end I think most of us are just trying to make the best beer we possibly can.
Definetly hit the wort with O2 again before you pitch the starter in.
 
Buna_Bere said:
That sounds pretty much like what I do. 10 minutes into the boil I pull a 2L flask for my starter. At this point the hot break has all ready occured and the wort remains unhopped. I chill the rest of my wort with an immersion chiller, flush the carboy with CO2 before I siphon the wort in, then flush the headspace with CO2 after. I pitch the 2L starter into my wort 24 hours later. Since I pitch the whole starter, I only use O2 at the beginning of the starter, I don't swirl or stirplate so I don't oxidize it, and I grow the starter at the same fermentation temps to avoid excessive esters and alcohols.
Since I pitch the whole starter I want it to be the same grain bill as the wort. I don't like the idea of crash cooling the starter and then decanting for a couple of reasons. I don't think you can really crash out all the yeast in 24 or 48 hours, definetly not the lower flocculating strains, like a kolsch. And I don't like getting the yeast all ready to go at fermentation temps, then dropping the temp down to make them dormant again, only having to raise the temp right back up again to pitch. These temperature fluctuations have got to stress the yeast at least a little bit.
We all got our own ways of making a starter, and in the end I think most of us are just trying to make the best beer we possibly can.
Definetly hit the wort with O2 again before you pitch the starter in.

It has been my understanding that the yeast will remove any oxidization that occured between chilling and adding to the fermenter. And what i was going to do was get the starter going at 50F like the beer will be. Im thinking ill need 48hrs at that temp since its a lager strain and slow to start. And u dont use a stirplate because of oxydization? Wont the yeast clean that up?
 
I started flushing the headspace of the carboy with CO2 if your going to let it sit for a while before pitching from the Gordon Strong book, Brewing Better Beer. If there is O2 in solution, then yeah I'm sure the yeast could pull that out, but not out of an oxidized hop or wort compound. I was thinking of doing a lager, and I was wondering if I should let the starter sit for longer than an ale strain too, so I reread some of the Yeast book by Jamil and listened to the yeast starter episode on the BN. I never read or heard them talking about letting a lager starter go longer than an ale starter.
 
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