2 yeast questions...

[Tom Church]

1) I have a stalled starter...The packet was 6 mo old. It took 3 days to expand the pouch...I made a started...followed the directions perfect and nothing...I mean there are a few bubbles and a little surface activity but it has been 5 days now. Whats up? Can I get it going or is it dead? The temp has been a solid 70-75 the whole time...

2) We started to follow the directions for harvesting yeast but life got in the way. We poured off the first jar and now I have a mason jar that is 2/3 filled that has been in the fridge for 2 days. It has a layer of whitish material at the bottom. Did I flub this to or what is the next step?

Thanks
Tom

 

[SBN]

Tom - likely that your starter worked and is done - you had a fair amount of yeast and a comparatively small amount of wort, it won't take long. As for the white stuff on the bottom, that be yeast, so brew something with it!

Skol!

 

[Biermann]

Is it an ale yeast or a lager?

lager yeast may take a while longer.


And the white stuff on the bottom is likely yeast.

 

[Tom Church]

I watched the starter pretty closely and it did not react anything like the one I did last week which spent 2 days bubbling away.

The 2nd question is about harvesting from the primary, just to be more clear. Should I now pour out the water and save the yeast?

Tom

 

[Yuri_Rage]

For your starter, do what is called "stepping up." My technique is to let the yeast settle for a few hours, pour most of the clear liquid off, and add about twice as much starter wort as I previously used. Let that ferment, and repeat as necessary to get the size starter you want. If you just want yeast propagation, you don't have to increase the amount of starter wort each time.

For harvesting, you did nothing wrong. In fact, letting the "harvest" settle for a few days probably helps. Check out the yeast harvesting link in my signature.