Aerated Yeast from Microbrew

[bbbrew]

Question for you guys. Last week, when my lager would start because of older yeast, I stop at one of the local Microbrewery's here in Cleveland. They got me set up with a Wyeast 2206 right out of their fermenter. It was well aerated and when I got home I poured about a 1/3 of it into the fermenter, and away it went.

Now for my question. Since I had 2/3 of a liter left, I thought why not make another batch this weekend. So, (2) days ago I made a starter and pitch it into the 2 liter container; first mistake I assume. And boy was I suprised when the container violently expanded. Not knowing what to do, I just capped it off and placed it into a bullet proof cooler and put it back into the frig around 45F. It held, but when I tried to pitch it into the fermenter pail with my newly brewed Pilsener (wasn't even going to attempt to dump it into the carboy hole), I didn't get to far with a 1/4 of a turn of the yeast container. It was spraying all over. At that point I just got the lid off as fast as possible and dumped it in. The hell with contamination at this point. Could someone give me some insights as to how to handle something like this in the future.

Thanks,
BB

 

[as_saturn_ascends]

just let some of the pressure out of the bottle about once a week. more if you need to. less often if you can get away with it. burp your bottles of yeast and you should have no problem

 

[Beer_Guy]

When yeast is working it is producing Co2. The Co2 molecules become suspended in the liquid. When you combined the yeast slurry with all that suspended Co2 with a liquid with plenty of particles floating around, the Co2 attached itself to them and other Co2 molecules and rose up to the surface. This raised up the Krausen in a major way. To prevent this in future batches, add a little bit at a time. Stir it and then add more.

Or just use a bigger container.

 

[RegionalChaos]

Next time just keep the slurry in a jar in the fridge. You don't need to feed it if there is enough there.

 

[bbbrew]

Since this was my first Lager, I was paranoid about not having enough yeast again. This is why I tried to make the starter a couple of extra days in advance. I probably shouldn't have done this and just pitched what I had.

I tried to relieve the press every couple of hours however it would really foam up quickly so I just let the pressure build.

The better suggestion would have been like BeerGuy suggested to add just a little at a time or to use a larger container. My homemade stir plate doesn't have a stiff enough plastic top to hold a gallon jug, or I would have done that from the start. It will have one soon though.

Thanks for the suggestions.
BB

 

[giligson]

Not sure if I've got the right mental picture of what happened to you but I will say that If you are saving yeast cake in a jar (I often do) in the fridge, do not cap it. Cover it with foil for the the 1st 2 weeks as the yeast is likely to be active just out of primary and still producing CO2.