Starters in Warm Weather

[OldBunny]

Put up a yeast starter yesterday. Checked it this morning and had a massive krausen on top. I usually let my starter run for 3 or 4 days before cold crashing. My brew shop temperature runs from 72 to 75 degrees and I was wondering if I should crash sooner with the more rapid growth I'm seeing.

 

[BanginBanjo]

I would crash it now. I typically only let my starters run for 18-24 hours (until about high krausen), although sometimes longer if I haven't noticed any activity. You don't really want your starter fermenting out completely because the yeast will no longer be at it's peak performance.

 

[OldBunny]

Thanks, you've confirmed my thoughts on the subject.

 

[duboman]

Sorry, I disagree. You either pitch the whole thing at high krausen or you allow it to ferment out, crash it and decant. Crashing a starter early defeats the purpose of making a starter and most likely you are not getting the full cell count you were hoping for

72-75 is not too warm for a starter either, room temp is perfectly fine. I will say 3-4 days is a little long, my starters are generally fully fermented out in 18-24 hours easily. After they have fermented all you are really doing after that is beating up the yeast

 

[OldBunny]

I crashed it at about 6 PM yesterday which was a bit over 24 hours. Looked like it was well fermented. Brwe day is Monday.

 

[Cyclman]

24 hrs. is what I always do. If you're not pitching the beer from the starter, temp doesn't matter, as long as its within reason.

 

[bd2xu]

I'd say temp does matter some. For example, you wouldn't want to toss yeast at 40 degrees F into wort at 70 F. I think the best practice is to get the wort and yeast a little lower than desired ferm temp and let them come up together. A big variance in either direction can cause slow starts best case, incomplete ferms worst.

 

[OldBunny]

Everything went quite well. I got very active fermentation after 18 hours with a significant blow-off. One week later, it's still pushing a blub every10 seconds through my 3/4" blow-off tube. Switched to a fermentation lock for the remainder.