- Joined
- Dec 19, 2015
- Messages
- 270
- Reaction score
- 103
I am now going to invite everyone to have a good laugh at my expense.
Hell, we're all under quarantine, right, what else ya gotta do.
I've been reading in several sources about stepping up starters, growing enough yeast for lager fermentation, etc. Won't bore you with the bibliography, and in any case no one said to do this, I just kinda thunk it up and decided to try it.
Here's the "this" that I did. I made a 1L starter of WY2124 Bohemian Lager yeast. I then stepped that up with another 2L. Let it finish, settle, then cold-crashed it. I then brewed some wort for a Dortmunder Export roughly based on Zainasheff & Palmer, and it came out at about 1.062.
Now here's where the rubber meets the road ... I had siphoned off 1L of the Dortmunder wort, and after the wort was cool, I decanted the starter, added a little of the yeast to the 1L of wort, and pitched the rest into the carboy. The 5 gal. and 1.5L worts fermented happily side-by-side, and when I thought they were both near high Kraeusen, I pitched the little into the big. You see what I was tryina do here, right? But how many of you have already predicted the beer geyser that occurred?
It was pretty spectacular actually. All is right with the world, I cleaned up the mess, attached the blow-off tube and put the carboy back in the lagering fridge, and said to myself, as Thomas Edison supposedly did thousands of times, "well, I've discovered another way NOT to do this."
When you're done wiping the tears from your eyes, grab a home-brew and give me any thoughts you may have on this little adventure of mine.
In particular: was this just a bad idea or was it a pretty good idea and maybe my timing was just off?
In spite of the fact that my Dad was a physicist, I am not very scientifically inclined; but if you want to lay some science on me I will try to understand as much as I can and I will appreciate your efforts to inform.
Prosit!
Hell, we're all under quarantine, right, what else ya gotta do.
I've been reading in several sources about stepping up starters, growing enough yeast for lager fermentation, etc. Won't bore you with the bibliography, and in any case no one said to do this, I just kinda thunk it up and decided to try it.
Here's the "this" that I did. I made a 1L starter of WY2124 Bohemian Lager yeast. I then stepped that up with another 2L. Let it finish, settle, then cold-crashed it. I then brewed some wort for a Dortmunder Export roughly based on Zainasheff & Palmer, and it came out at about 1.062.
Now here's where the rubber meets the road ... I had siphoned off 1L of the Dortmunder wort, and after the wort was cool, I decanted the starter, added a little of the yeast to the 1L of wort, and pitched the rest into the carboy. The 5 gal. and 1.5L worts fermented happily side-by-side, and when I thought they were both near high Kraeusen, I pitched the little into the big. You see what I was tryina do here, right? But how many of you have already predicted the beer geyser that occurred?
It was pretty spectacular actually. All is right with the world, I cleaned up the mess, attached the blow-off tube and put the carboy back in the lagering fridge, and said to myself, as Thomas Edison supposedly did thousands of times, "well, I've discovered another way NOT to do this."
When you're done wiping the tears from your eyes, grab a home-brew and give me any thoughts you may have on this little adventure of mine.
In particular: was this just a bad idea or was it a pretty good idea and maybe my timing was just off?
In spite of the fact that my Dad was a physicist, I am not very scientifically inclined; but if you want to lay some science on me I will try to understand as much as I can and I will appreciate your efforts to inform.
Prosit!