Can someone explain this yeast starter?

[m00ps]

I made a 2L starter on my stirplate and turned it off yesterday so it would settle to decant and brew today. When I got home I was surprised to find all the yeast floating at the top, very little at the bottom.

Its like a SOLID mass of yeast. Like a 1.5" plug in the stopper neck. I rock it and it jiggles like jello. I cant even pour the starter wort out without poking a hole in it or something. I didnt snap a pic with the top off cause I didnt want it exposed too long, but its a solid layer on top. Blocks any flow of wort. Its WY1318, which IME makes a big krausen so im wondering if thats the case

I took out the stopper for a second to smell to see if it smelled sour or vinegary, but it was a yeasty as ever so Im not thinking infection. Any ideas what I should do to try and pitch this tonight? I also need to harvest a bit to keep in my fridge. I could like literally spoon this into a jar..

 

[jhoneycutt]

I'm no expert but that's different. I know you're wanting g serious replies here but I got nothing. What kind of yeast is it?

 

[m00ps]

London ale iii. Wyeast 1318.
I'm thinking of spooning it out but all my spoons have to have some kind of crap on them since I use my dishwasher exclusively for bottling. Not enough sanitizer in the world to make me feel good about using a spoon i put in my dirty ass mouth

 

[chickypad]

I guess that's what they mean by it being true top cropping strain. I'd spoon it out. You're going to have to bite the bullet and clean a spoon though.

 

[flars]

Have your tried refrigerating the flask to drop the yeast? Gently rocking the flask a couple times after a day of chilling may get the yeast to drop.

A three liter flask is better for a two liter starter to have room for the krausen that some yeasts produce.

 

[specharka]

Looks like you put too much starter wort in your flask and it probably didn't attenuate by the time you turned the stir plate off. Might not be why the yeast is acting up but I'm sure it doesn't help things. I've had similar experiences with blowoff from aggressive strains -- I collected almost a cup of creamy yeast from WY3333 blowoff...so much so that I was tempted to reuse it. Aggressive top croppers like wheat and Belgian yeast will do that too.

 

[m00ps]

Thanks guys. So I ended up putting it back on the sitrplate. It got everything back in suspension after a few min then I just turned it back off and it settled down. The flask is so full cause I started with like 1.5L and then just added more after a few days. I'm pretty sure it was done attenuating since it was going on like 5 days in