Are yeast starters required?

[william_shakes_beer]

I have recently taken up brewing after a hiatus of several years. My first 2 brews failed to ferment. I have determined through other threads on this forum that the cause was mash temps that were too high and greatly reduced fermentability. So i decided to do my old crowd pleaser that required no mash, fermented cider. Guess what, failure to ferment!!! I have since pulled out a sample of the (must?) and placed it on my stir plate. It has been spinning for 2 days and is sloooowly fermenting. I plan to go to the LHBS tomorrow and get a second package of the same sider yeast and pitch it into the starter, then re-pitch the main bucket once it has settled out.

That got me thinking; Is it possible the first 2 batches failed to ferment because I did not do a starter?

Prior to my hiatus, I was ranching yeast so I always did a starter beginning the Monday before my scheduled brew Saturday. Prior to that I was doing extract kits and i never did a starter.

Should I always do a starter? I had thought that the commercial pitch packs *should* have enough cells to attenuate a moderate gravity batch. FYI the first 2 batches were WLP550 pure pitch, the third was cider house select because that's what my LHBS had in stock at the time.

 

[brewdude88]

Something is wrong here... Are you taking gravity measurements to confirm no fermentation? What temp are you pitching at? Are you aerating the wort? What was your mash temp?

Also, if you used commercial cider juice it could contain preservatives that keep yeast from budding...

 

[Sammy86]

The general rule of thumb as im sure you are aware is anything under 1.060 generally doesn't need a starter. However, this is inpacted by when the yeast were actually packaged.

There are numerous articles out there stating that even 4 month old yeast should have at least 50% viability so if you are using old yeast making a starter is probably a good idea.

Personally, i haven't made starters in a while because ive been using Imperial Organic Yeast which starts with 200 Billion cells...and i don't make many beers of 1.060 so I generally don't worry about it.

Like above, something doesnt sound right...even if the yeast were stressed they should have fermented some sugar in your wort or must.

 

[rjhoff]

First many years of brewing I used liquid yeast (aka) White Labs and I almost always did a starter. For whatever reason I’m not prepared to admit, I’ve always hated doing starters, so early this year I switched to dry yeast and now never do a starter. Since the yeast costs half as much I have no issue using 2 packs on the high OG beers.

 

[william_shakes_beer]

The juice is from a local orchard. No preservatives, no additives, Pasteurized only. Same juice I have used to ferment for many many previous batches.

The ferm chamber is set at 68F

I aerated just after pitching with a sanitized paint stirrer on a power drill.

I happen to have a gallon of juice i reserved for backsweetening. Its SG is 1.055

The fermenter got 4 gallons of juice plus 2# of light brown sugar. According to my spreadsheet that should have yielded an OG of 1.047.

I pitched it Friday, 10/2/2020. Its now Tuesday, 10/6/2020

I went down to take the raw gravity reading a moment ago and a noticed cheerful little progression of bubbles coming out the airlock. Popped the lid and noticed a healthy covering of foam, the co2 singed my nostrils. Perhaps I pressed the panic button prematurely. However, in my own defense, it has been 4 days, which seems a an awfully long lag time for dry yeast.

My present refractometer raw reading is 1.048 Never did figure out the alcohol correction factor formula for post ferment refractometer readings so I can't tell what the present SG may be.

But the question remains: does the wisdom of the forum recommend I make starters as a normal course of my brewing process going forward?

 

[Stonehenge360]

My understanding is most liquid packs ship with enough yeast for a 1.060 or less OG. If the pack is old, or your OG is higher, two packs or a starter will get your count up to where it needs to be.

for dry yeast, I’m pretty sure the count is actually much higher than liquid and a starter is not necessary.

personally, I always do a starter on liquid yeast just so I can save some in the fridge for next time...no sense buying yeast multiple times when you can grow it yourself

 

[VikeMan]

My understanding is most liquid packs ship with enough yeast for a 1.060 or less OG.

I'll just add that it depends on one's definition of enough. i.e. it's better to decide on a pitch rate and then calculate an estimate of whether or not the pack (given its particular age) has enough viable cells to meet that pitch rate. IOW, instructions on the package are fairly generic. Words like "good for up to 5 gallons of up to 1.060 wort if the pack is less than 6 months old" (or whatever) don't actually denote any particular pitch rate (in cells per volume per gravity), given there are three variables right there in the advice, each of which (depending on its value) changes the actual pitch rate.

 

[Stonehenge360]

IOW, instructions on the package are fairly generic. Words like "good for up to 5 gallons of up to 1.060 wort if the pack is less than 6 months old" (or whatever) don't actually denote any particular pitch rate

Quite true. For simplicity and a lack of desire to run the calculations, I tend to over-pitch in an attempt to avoid under-pitching. This is not the ideal method, but I have never had a stall either.

 

[jrgtr42]

Sounds like your cider is getting going. With a refractometer, the readings will be higher than the "real" reading because of the alcohol involved.
You can use them, but you need a conversion. I use this online one from Brewers Friend Refractometer Calculator. For a beer, I leave the correction factor at 1.0 and have been getting spot on numbers when double checking with my hydrometer.
When you say the beers failed to ferment, do you mean there was absolutely no change in gravity?
There's a lot of things that might cause this, but most of them come down to dead yeast. if live yeast are in the presence of food (sugars) it'll eat it and eventually cause the gravity to go down.