anyone try this?

[Joe028]

I just had an idea and wanted to know what you folks thought. I have an older yeast pack here which I already made a small starter with. I plan to step it up to a larger starter before brewing tomorrow. I am concerned about it's viability. The problem I run into is that I don't have a big enough jar/growler/container to put this larger starter (about 3qts) into.

My thought is to use my 6 1/2 gallon carboy and just let the starter go at the bottom of it. Then, when it is done, I can decant any of the extra liquid off the top and rack my cooled wort from my brew day onto this "yeast cake," almost like racking onto a previous brew's yeast cake.

Anyone see holes in this? or is this something others have done?

 

[Bugeaterbrewing]

Other than being awkward to decant, your method should work fine. With the short time frame, be sure to give the thing a good shake every time you walk past. It will take about 18 hours for that to ferment out. Be careful handling the carboy.


Wayne
Bugeater Brewing Company

 

[the_bird]

I don't see why it wouldn't work - well, one thing. I cold-crash my starters before decanting to get as many yeast as possible to drop, can you do that with the carboy (got room in the fridge?). Otherwise, should work; the issue with having too much headspace is too much O2, but that's not a concern with a starter, doubly so when you decant.

 

[Muss]

Since you don't have a container large enough can you not just divide the wort and yeast in to 2 seperate plastic containers and make 2 smaller starters at once?

 

[Joe028]

Yes, I'm sure I could just do two separate smaller starters. But it's too late now, it has already begun. So far I have just over a gallon of 1.044 gravity wort in my 6.5 gallon carboy with the yeast in there chowing away. I did do a small starter first and then stepped up to the 1 gallon.

The plan from here is to let it ferment out, chill it and then rack off most of the liquid off the top with an autosiphon. I'll leave as much of the yeast cake there at the bottom and rack my fresh wort from brew day right on top.

I guess this all came about because I am sick of the lag time I have been getting even though I have used starters. Since this was old yeast I figured I needed to do something even bigger this time. I'll weight the pros and cons later, but for now hopefully this all turns out okay.

 

[Beerrific]

Here's what you need to do:

Buy 5- 1gallon jugs of apple juice

Make some of EdWort's Apfelwein

Now you have 5 nice big jugs for making starters.

 

[Barley-Davidson]

Sounds like it'll work fine.
I look forward to hearing how it turns out.

 

[Joe028]

After a bit of doubt on my own part throughout the process this seems to have worked wonderfully! I just checked on the brew that was done today and it had quite a bit of airlock activity. I thought I was going to have to report tomorrow after I saw some activity, but I got bubbles in the airlock within 4 hours.

I didn't have a full thick yeast cake like after a full batch of brew, but it seems to have worked great. I put the 1 gallon starter that was in my 6 1/2 gallon carboy in the freezer for 1 hour and then used an autosiphon to get the wort off the top. I was left with a very thin layer of yeast cake sludge. After I finished brewing and cooling my wort, I racked on top of this yeast and it took off within 4 hours.

I do see the disadvantage to this process is the cost involved in making what is basically a large starter. I paid nearly $5 for the DME to make the starter wort. I could cut that a bit in the future by using grain, but still an additional cost.

To those of you using stir plates and such, what kind of lag time are you seeing? I have never used one, but am intrigued.

 

[Sir Humpsalot]

Tilt the carboy about 30 degrees. This will give you less surface area at the bottom of the fermenter and should help the yeast get around...