I got overly ambitious and bored the day I decided to do my starter for the brew I'm about to finish. I actually took all the ingredients for the brew (except the hops) and made about 3/4 gal of mash to feed my yeast.
The timing was just about perfect. The yeast cake in the bottom of my 1-gal starter jug looks pretty nice and thick, the krausen has fallen, and I have about a half hour left on my boil. Just need to cool and aerate and I'll be ready to pitch.
I only have one question though. The how-to-brew website recommends dumping the beer out of the starter before pitching it. I'm guessing it's because the starter began at a higher temperature, so it probably contains off flavors and adding 3/4 gallon to a 5 gallon batch of brew is probably going to have a small but noticeable effect on the flavor. So, after I dump out the beer in the starter jug and I'm left with the yeast cake, how do I get it out of there? I'm sure some of it will run out with little issue, but I bet most of it will be stuck to the bottom of the jug. How do I get all that yeast cake out of the bottom?
I thought about sanitizing a few cups of water and lowering it to an equal temperature, putting it in there, and swirling the water to capture the yeast and then dumping it, but I'm not sure if that's a good idea. Suggestions?
The timing was just about perfect. The yeast cake in the bottom of my 1-gal starter jug looks pretty nice and thick, the krausen has fallen, and I have about a half hour left on my boil. Just need to cool and aerate and I'll be ready to pitch.
I only have one question though. The how-to-brew website recommends dumping the beer out of the starter before pitching it. I'm guessing it's because the starter began at a higher temperature, so it probably contains off flavors and adding 3/4 gallon to a 5 gallon batch of brew is probably going to have a small but noticeable effect on the flavor. So, after I dump out the beer in the starter jug and I'm left with the yeast cake, how do I get it out of there? I'm sure some of it will run out with little issue, but I bet most of it will be stuck to the bottom of the jug. How do I get all that yeast cake out of the bottom?
I thought about sanitizing a few cups of water and lowering it to an equal temperature, putting it in there, and swirling the water to capture the yeast and then dumping it, but I'm not sure if that's a good idea. Suggestions?
