two beers with one vial?

[Harrydan]

Alright guys and gals I may be trying to get too cute with this one but my long awaited brew day is approaching and I am making two styles: a red ale and an oatmeal stout. I was planning on using WLP004 IRISH ALE YEAST. I was at my lhbs and I thought since I have a few days before brew day(Sat), and since I have extra grain and DME that rather than fork over the extra 10 dollars for a second vial I should instead make a good sized starter and kill two birds with one stone. Is that a realistic and if so should I avoid the darker malts in the starter for fear that they might change my color in the red ale when I pitch the starter? Any insight would be helpful. Thanks

 

[WesleyS]

I do it all the time. I just make two starters and split the vial between the two.

 

[Revvy]

Or make a huge starter in like a growler and use half in each batch.

 

[Harrydan]

Two litres a piece?

 

[Harrydan]

Thanks revvy that's what I was going to use. How about the question about what to use in the starter. I have about a lb of DME and some extra roasted barley and flaked barley. I was thinking that giving the yeast a little taste of their future big meal might be a good idea. What do you think?

 

[Qhrumphf]

Alright guys and gals I may be trying to get too cute with this one but my long awaited brew day is approaching and I am making two styles: a red ale and an oatmeal stout. I was planning on using WLP004 IRISH ALE YEAST. I was at my lhbs and I thought since I have a few days before brew day(Sat), and since I have extra grain and DME that rather than fork over the extra 10 dollars for a second vial I should instead make a good sized starter and kill two birds with one stone. Is that a realistic and if so should I avoid the darker malts in the starter for fear that they might change my color in the red ale when I pitch the starter? Any insight would be helpful. Thanks

Regardless of the beer, my starters are all 100% extra light DME. If you've only got darker DME, what you could do is cold crash the starter first, decant off the spent beer and only pitch the slurry. Any flavor/color impact should be minimal at best.

I do it all the time. I just make two starters and split the vial between the two.

I do this too. But I've never done it for two different beers, but rather for making larger starters out of smaller containers without having to step up.

 

[Harrydan]

OG for the starter?

 

[Harrydan]

OK. That. Was. A. Disaster. Boiling the water and just about to measure the DME when my 9 month old crawls over and grabs my leg to pull himself up scaring the crap out of me since he was supposed to be gated in the other room. I drop all the DME in my 2 liters of boiling water. I tried to dilute it but couldn't quite get there in my pot. So I pour some off into another pot and dilute it to a 1.030 OG. Now I have my starter but also almost a gallon of unyeasted DME starter that is in limbo. Can it be salvaged?

 

[Qhrumphf]

A couple options.

A) Keep it cold and sanitary. Pull off a small amount of the yeast from the first starter, and innoculate some or all of the rest. Then pitch that into another beer.

B) If it were me, I'd take a quart or so of that starter wort, stick it in a sterile mason jar, put some cheesecloth over the opening, leave the lid off and leave it by an open window. See if you can't catch yourself some tasty (or equally possible godawful) wild yeast.

C) If you have a pressure cooker, heat it up sufficiently for sterilization, and can it. Then you can keep that wort for a long long time in the fridge, and next time you need a starter you already have wort ready to go.

 

[Epimetheus]

it was a total success. None of the boiling water reached your two year old.

You could make a big starter with the gallon of wort, then decant the yeast and freeze it.

 

[Qhrumphf]

it was a total success. None of the boiling water reached your two year old.

You could make a big starter with the gallon of wort, then decant the yeast and freeze it.

If you're referring to freezing the yeast, bad idea unless you're adding something to keep the cell walls from being destroyed (I've never frozen yeast, but as far as I know glycerin is commonly used).

 

[944play]

I suggest serializing your brewing; rather than trying to get two batches' worth of cells from a single pack of yeast (brewing in parallel), just harvest from the first batch to pitch the next. You could even top-crop if you don't want to wait for the first batch to flocc out.

 

[SPR-GRN]

I agree with "large starter split in two" also, if you find yourself buying the same yeast multiple times, try saving your yeast - I've been doing it for a while now, it works out with liquid yeast being as expensive as it is.

 

[Harrydan]

Thanks guys. I think I'll split the starter in two. It'll work our to a 1L starter per batch. Since I am splitting it should I just shake it up, split it, then pitch the whole thing rather than cold crash/decanting? I used extra light DME for the starter so I am not too worried about color/taste change.