My First Starter - do I do another round?

[virgil1]

I had Wyeast 1056 American Ale, date was Sept 28th, 2015 on package. I had it a while, and it was already 'swollen' when I got it home. The nutrient pack(smack pack) had never burst(I verified this when I opened). I wasn't sure how viable it was, but the yeast calculator said less then 40%. I went ahead and built a 1L starter, adding about 7 tbsp of extract. This happened to be the first time I did a starter, using my newly built stir plate. I never noticed any kind of krausen, but I let it stir for 3+ days. I poured it into three mason jars when done, and let it cold crash in the fridge. It looks like I have three jars I could use for three batches, but I had originally thought I would have to do another 1L starter, pouring all three mason jars worth of yeast in(decanting off most of the wort from the jars, adding the yeast from each jar into a new batch of extract). Attached are some pictures. Thoughts?

The three jars I ended up with after cold crashing. I poured all the contents of the flask out into these three.


Stir plate in action. Not much krausen, but definitely cloudy.


The original smack pack.


Flask with DME being heated on the stove(after it boiled for about 10 minutes, I cooled and then pitched yeast)

 

[flars]

According to this calculator you have about 182 billion cells. This would be enough yeast for a 5 gallon ale of 1.052 OG.
http://www.brewunited.com/yeast_calculator.php

WY 1056 smack packs are almost always showing some swelling after they arre shipped. This is from CO2 produced in the package and does not affect the viability. It is not necessary for the nutrient pack to be broken for the yeast work.

Weighing ingredients in brewing is more accurate than trying to use volume measurements. I have a $20 digital scale from Walmart with a readout for pounds and ounces, ounces, and grams. Gram readout is great for weighing the DME for starters and especially dividing packs of hops.

 

[wilserbrewer]

A 1 liter starter w/ 7 lbs of extract?

 

[virgil1]

A 1 liter starter w/ 7 lbs of extract?

7 tbs (tablespoons).

 

[virgil1]

According to this calculator you have about 182 billion cells. This would be enough yeast for a 5 gallon ale of 1.052 OG.
http://www.brewunited.com/yeast_calculator.php

WY 1056 smack packs are almost always showing some swelling after they arre shipped. This is from CO2 produced in the package and does not affect the viability. It is not necessary for the nutrient pack to be broken for the yeast work.

Weighing ingredients in brewing is more accurate than trying to use volume measurements. I have a $20 digital scale from Walmart with a readout for pounds and ounces, ounces, and grams. Gram readout is great for weighing the DME for starters and especially dividing packs of hops.

I was being lazy with the measuring, I know. I do have a small digital scale I'll use next time. I took a look at your yeast calculator link. I was using http://yeastcalculator.com/ . Looks like the "Homebrew Dad's" yeast calculator uses a slightly different growth factor than the one I was looking at. So I think all three of those jars combined would be enough for one 5 gallon batch(at about 1.050 SG, which is pretty standard for the IPAs I have been brewing). If I want to harvest some more yeast, I think I would need to do another starter. I don't quite understand how the next level of starter would work say I do it in a few days or a week, what date do I use for the yeast? I would assume I use the 9/28/2015 date still, but I start with ~180 billion instead of ~100 billion.

 

[virgil1]

I read a bunch more posts. I understand now that I can use the date I 'harvested' (January 20, 2016) for the next time I do a starter. I plan on doing so soon so I can continue to use this yeast for a few months. I will post how the first batch turns out that I use it for and how things went. Thanks everyone for their help and let me know if I can return the favor by answering any questions!

 

[wilserbrewer]

Another option is to save enough slurry from this batch to pitch to your next batch without a starter, that's the lazy mans way but it works well IME.