A starter volcano?

[Bmcclure8]

Last week I prepped a 2L starter of white labs cal ale yeast planning to brew an IPA. Stuff came up and I had to postpone my brew day a week. I let the starter run 48 hours and stuck it in the fridge. Night before my brew day I poured off most of the spent wort and added another 1.5L to a 2L flask. Woke up the next morning to a yeast volcano. I must have lost over a 1/4 cup of healthy rich yeast slurry out the top, down the sides and on the counter.

I brewed the IPA and pitched all 2L of the flask and its a little slow to start. I'm not worried yet but was curious if anyone has experience, advice or comment with a projectile starter? Given its a top fermenting yeast I was thinking I might have lost a good portion and could now have under pitched.

 

[anico4704]

I have also had this occur on a step up, a good rule of thumb is to never go over half the volume of the flask. So if you have a 2000ml flask, only make 1000ml starters or you will risk overflow.

Another thing, what was the point of adding another 1.5-2 L of wort after you already made a 2L starter? This essentially does nothing as you are not growing the yeast colony at all since it already grew before to the volume of a 2L starter so essentially your yeast just ate all the sugars without growing the second time around.

 

[Bmcclure8]

When you did the step up and lost a bunch of yeast did you end up with enough for a good beer?

As for what was I thinking? I asked myself that question after I did it but figured it was too late once I got it going.

 

[anico4704]

haha you will be fine I'm sure there was more than enough for a good beer. Some people pitch without a starter at all which is normally way underpitching and the beer turns out fine. I havent actually lost any yeast as my flask is large but its gotten crazy active slightly over the top sometimes

 

[Bmcclure8]

Thanks! Not really too worried but was thinking that ale yeasts are top fermenters, and so much seemed to shoot out the top that it got me thinking.

It's humming along pretty decent now at 65. Hope it's tasty in about three weeks. Cheers!