Yet another lager starter question

[Fiery Sword]

I have a 1000mL starter chugging away with White Labs WLP800 Pilsner Lager - going to be doing the wort for an AG Bohemian Pilsner (subject of other thread....maybe should have put this there!) tomorrow. Here's the question (posed by a brewing friend with no lager experience) that I had no good answer to:

I usually pour off the majority of the liquid from my starters and simply pitch the yeast cake. However, (thinking very n00bsih here....could be getting tangled in over-emphasizing words) the lager yeast is "top-fermenting" - so will more yeast be in suspension (right now there is a mini yeast-krausen on the top of the starter) and therefore "lost" if I dump off the liquid when pitching? Would it be better to pitch the entire volume of starter liquid?

This leads to question #2. All I had hanging around for DME was Muntons wheat, so that is what was (reluctantly.....as I was doing it it felt...wrong ) used for the starter. I am worried that dumping the entire volume of liquid (especially with a 1000mL volume) will compromise the clarity of the Pilsner. I've gone over the top with mash schedule research and really am hoping to have this beer be a clear as I have made one. Will the wheat DME compromise this?

Thanks for the advice. I feel like I should be washing some of your cars and mowing your lawns with all the help I've asked for around here for the last 3-4 months.

 

[Mikey]

Thanks for the advice. I feel like I should be washing some of your cars and mowing your lawns with all the help I've asked for around here for the last 3-4 months.

All in good time, all in good time.

Let the yeast settle slightly and pour off the liquid, just as you would with an ale. You don't want any wheat in your pilsner.

 

[Evan!]

the lager yeast is "top-fermenting" - so will more yeast be in suspension (right now there is a mini yeast-krausen on the top of the starter) and therefore "lost" if I dump off the liquid when pitching? Would it be better to pitch the entire volume of starter liquid?

First off, lager yeast is bottom-fermenting. Yes, a krausen is present, but lager yeasts are bottom fermenting, whereas ale yeasts are top-fermenting. Regardless, I never pour off any of my starter. I figure, it's just a little more beer at the end of the day. I overhop the wort accordingly.

This leads to question #2. All I had hanging around for DME was Muntons wheat, so that is what was (reluctantly.....as I was doing it it felt...wrong ) used for the starter. I am worried that dumping the entire volume of liquid (especially with a 1000mL volume) will compromise the clarity of the Pilsner. I've gone over the top with mash schedule research and really am hoping to have this beer be a clear as I have made one. Will the wheat DME compromise this?

Now, that could be an issue. However, 1/2 gallon of wheat DME starter, which is probably only half actual wheat malt, probably won't make much of a difference, especially given that the extended lagering process will pull out the haze anyway. At the end of the day, if it's too cloudy, bust out some KC Superkleer on them bitchez.

Thanks for the advice. I feel like I should be washing some of your cars and mowing your lawns with all the help I've asked for around here for the last 3-4 months.

I feel like that too, and I repay you all by helping others with my own knowledge.

Just do us a favor and don't post a naked pic of yourself once you hit 2000 posts. That's all I ask.

 

[Kaiser]

I have a 1000mL starter chugging away with White Labs WLP800 Pilsner Lager - going to be doing the wort for an AG Bohemian Pilsner (subject of other thread....maybe should have put this there!) tomorrow. Here's the question (posed by a brewing friend with no lager experience) that I had no good answer to:I usually pour off the majority of the liquid from my starters and simply pitch the yeast cake. However, (thinking very n00bsih here....could be getting tangled in over-emphasizing words) the lager yeast is "top-fermenting" - so will more yeast be in suspension (right now there is a mini yeast-krausen on the top of the starter) and therefore "lost" if I dump off the liquid when pitching? Would it be better to pitch the entire volume of starter liquid?

If you have the time, let the starter ferment out. This will get the yeast to flocculate and settle at the bottom and you can easily decant the liquid. With ale yeasts you can do this by chilling them down far enough, but this never worked for me with lagers. But if you don't have that time, you will have to pitch the whole starter. BTW, I think that 1000ml starter is to little to build up enough yeast for a proper lager pitching rate when you pitch cold. To be on the safe side you may want to pitch the lager in the lower 60s and chill it down to 50F once fermentation started. Next time try check out the pitching rate calculator at mrmalty.com (Jamil Z's page). You want to have about 100ml (3oz) 100% viable and clean yeast sediment to pitch an average gravity lager cold. This is another benefit of settling out the yeast in the starter; you can see how much you have.

This leads to question #2. All I had hanging around for DME was Muntons wheat, so that is what was (reluctantly.....as I was doing it it felt...wrong ) used for the starter. I am worried that dumping the entire volume of liquid (especially with a 1000mL volume) will compromise the clarity of the Pilsner. I've gone over the top with mash schedule research and really am hoping to have this beer be a clear as I have made one. Will the wheat DME compromise this?

As Evan said, this might be an issue (and also against the Reinheitsgebot, if you care ). But you can fix haze in the beer using finings like gelatin.

Kai

 

[Fiery Sword]

First off, lager yeast is bottom-fermenting.

d'oH!!!! I'd say "think before you type" but it was more "don't think too much before you type".

If you have the time, let the starter ferment out. This will get the yeast to flocculate and settle at the bottom and you can easily decant the liquid. With ale yeasts you can do this by chilling them down far enough, but this never worked for me with lagers. But if you don't have that time, you will have to pitch the whole starter. BTW, I think that 1000ml starter is to little to build up enough yeast for a proper lager pitching rate when you pitch cold. To be on the safe side you may want to pitch the lager in the lower 60s and chill it down to 50F once fermentation started.

The starter will have sufficient time to floc out, so I'm planning on decanting. Also, I don't pitch lagers cold. I just can't justify using all that extra wort-chiller water to get it down much further than 64, and I find that I get better results with this method anyway. I am a firm believer in the pitch warm and cool slowly to optimal temps.

As Evan said, this might be an issue (and also against the Reinheitsgebot, if you care ). But you can fix haze in the beer using finings like gelatin.

For this batch I don't mind (not don't care!!) that this might be a Reinheitsgebot violation. This is my first all-grain lager and first real experimentation with bigtime water tweaking so I'm willing to let this slip on the basis that I have many other things on my mind. Having only wheat DME on hand was a screw up, but it was not worth a drive to the LHBS to get non-wheat. That being said, I am confident the starter will floc out (it was made about 48-54 hours in advance so let's see!) and I won't get much "contamination". I might or might not use some sort of finings, but I want to see how it goes before then.

Thanks guys for the help!!