Lager Yeast

[brewtimus]

So I made a 2 liter yeast starter with two vials of wlp pilsner lager yeast. I covered it with foil and put the erlynmeyer flask in my kegerator freezer to keep it at 54 degrees. Long story short, got busy couldn't brew and left for work. A week later I came home and there was a precious little white and blue fungus raft floating around on top. I sanitized a knife and carefully removed the little devil. Then I pitched the wort. I then made another starter in another flask and transferred the yeast over. I know I'm a cheap bastard, but I didn't want all that time and work go to waste and I was making another starter for a hefe. So now about a month later in I taste the starter to see if it is sour. It tastes pretty good actually as far as starters go, I usually decant and just pitch the yeast. Any thoughts on whether I have a wild strain in those bad boys? I was thinking of using second runnings on my next batch with a can of kicker in there and trying this yeast out. Whaddya think? Worth the effort? Any first hand experience would be appreciated. Cheers J

 

[Hammy71]

If it had mold on it, I wouldn't use it.

 

[Boodlemania]

Another bit of advice for the future: no need to pitch two vials into a starter. Pitch one and save the $.

 

[mlyday]

Another bit of advice for the future: no need to pitch two vials into a starter. Pitch one and save the $.

Most of the time this is true, but if he only started it a couple of days before, he wouldnt have enough with just one vial. One vial would need to be steped up a few times for a lager.

 

[brewtimus]

Thanks for the replies. It went down the drain, lesson learned. I guess next time I'll be using a stopper and airlock. I can't figure out why i get so much mold in that chest freezer. I wipe it down with bleach and water and put a beach towel in the bottom under the kegs too. Btw I was gonna brew a 24 gallon batch so maybe even two vials stepped up would have been iffy. thx again for the advice.

 

[mlyday]

Yeah you would have needed a bunch more yeast. I never do my lager starters in the fridge. Room temp, well basement temp. never had a problem.

 

[brewtimus]

So for a 24 gallon pilsner batch with an o.g. around 1.065 what would you suggest. 4-5 yeast vials in a two liter starter? I could make another starter with an airlock and stopper on it and ferment the yeast at intended main batch temperatures or does that even matter?

 

[944play]

Lagers need lots of cells. You'd probably do better to pitch your 2L starter in a 10 gallon batch of a lower-gravity beer and harvest from that. That way you get more cells and more BEER! There are pitch rate calculators out there to help: MrMalty doesn't do multiple steps but is easy to use, Wyeast's and Brewzor (on Android) do.

Lager starters can be fermented at room temp as long as you're going to let it ferment out and decant the starter beer.

 

[osagedr]

So for a 24 gallon pilsner batch with an o.g. around 1.065 what would you suggest. 4-5 yeast vials in a two liter starter? I could make another starter with an airlock and stopper on it and ferment the yeast at intended main batch temperatures or does that even matter?

I would suggest a dozen packages of W-34/70 rehydrated.