So what I am seeing exactly in this picture of my starter?

[msa8967]

Made a 1 L yeast starter using a stir plate from a Wyeast Belgian Wit smakc pack that was manufactured over a year ago. 36 hours ago I bumped this up to a 2 L starter and it appears to have lots of activity. I have a layer yeast at the bottom and I am not exactly sure what there is at the top.

Would this be called "krausen" and does it have active yeast in it?

Should I go ahead and chill this to get the yeast to drop out or contiune to let it be active?

 

[kh54s10]

I would say that is indeed krausen. It will have some yeast in it. I would chill, decant and pitch. Or you can swirl everything and pitch it all. Either way is fine. The wort may add a little bit of color and flavor to the beer though.

 

[Walker]

yeah, that kraeusen, and it will have yeast in it. I rarely ever make starters, but when I do, I let them ferment out completely and then chill them to get the yeast to drop. Then I dump off almost all of the liquid and pitch only the yeast cake from the bottom of the container.

 

[insubordinateK]

Yes, there is yeast on the top but it's insignificant compared to the number of yeast cells on bottom. I don't know if I would chill the starter (I never do), since this will halt the activity of your yeast.

Then entire point of making a starter is to:

1. increase the yeast cell count
2. get the yeast into an active growth phase to get fermentation off to a good start

I would just decant most of the liquid, swirl the bottom sediment, and add.

 

[msa8967]

Actually I won't be brewing with these yeast for a few weeks. All of these starters came from yeast packets that had passed their "best if used by" date. I wanted to make starters from each of the them to see if the yeast were viable or not. Hope to brewing beers with these within the next 2-3 weeks. Problem is I don't know if I should do another starter for each yeast the day prior to brewing. Any thoughs?

 

[morticaixavier]

Looks less like krausen and more like lots of good healthy top fermenting yeast to me. I hope that glass jar isn't sealed cause that is an active starter and it's kicking off co2.

If your not using for a couple weeks let it finish (the stuff will drop) chill, decant and add some boiled/cooled RO or distilled water and stick it in the fridge.

 

[pickles]

I'd let it settle out, decant liquid, then seperate about 50-100 ml of thick sludge into sanitized containers. You'll end up with a four or five smaller jars of this yeast, store in the fridge and make a starter next time you're ready to brew from a single jar.

 

[msa8967]

Thanks for the advice and comments everyone. The lids on these jars are not sealed tight and it looks like my efforts to revive these "expired" yeast packets from the back of my beer fridge have paid off. I hope to be able to do some brewing as soon as Santa and his elves return back up north.