Big lager yeast starter

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

steelerguy

Well-Known Member
Joined
Apr 7, 2008
Messages
482
Reaction score
14
Location
Stony Brook, NY
I am going to be brewing a doppelbock next weekend and I need to start thinking about the starter. I have one smack pack of Wyeast 2206 Bavarian Lager. I am going to be shooting for around 1.085 for the OG and will need about 600 billion little yeasties working for me.

Using the Wyeast pitching rate calculator it seems like doing a two step starter. 1.33 quarts let it go for 24 hours, then add 2.66 quarts, and let it go for another 24 hours. That into my wort should give me enough yeast.

For those of you who have brewed large lagers before, does this sound about right? I was thinking I could do that process twice if needed, saving the yeast from the first run in a jar in the fridge while I make another starter. Then combine and pitch when ready. Don't want to do that though if just one run though should be enough. What say you lager brewers?
 
ya know, i never pay attention to pitch rates. depending on what my og is, and how big a batch im doing, i just guestimate on my rampup. im doing a 10 gallon american wheat tomorrow that has an og just about 1.060, and i used one wyeast 1010 and tripled the starter. dont know how much yeast, dont know a pitch rate, didnt measure my water or dme, but i can guarantee you that by the size of the yeast cake i have now, itll go nuclear in about 6 hours.
 
so just an update on that wheat beer starter, yeah i pitched it, and by hour 6 i had kraussen flowing all over the place out the airlock. just make a substantial starter that you feel will be relevant to your og and batch size. i suppose its time to make a blowoff tube setup because thats the 4th batch in a row that ive had a nuclear starter.
 
Uhhh... you do know that overpitching can be as much of a problem as underpitching. There is a reason that professional brewers spend time and energy on pitching the right amount of yeast. Its not as if they don't have enough around.

GT
 
this be the case, understood. however, i didnt just throw the whole boat in, i ramped my starter up in three steps from one pack of yeast so i could pitch it in a 10 gallon batch that was split into 2 5-gallon buckets. i wasnt suggesting to just throw however much you want in, as a matter of fact, just do a gallon starter. hell use a 5 gallon buckets worth. i was simply insinuating that some people are way too damn scientific about this stuff. just make what you think should do the trick and pitch it. and in my case, use a blowoff tube.
 
I just did a baltic porter that started at 1.092. I used a starter, but it wasn't big enough and it petered out around 1.040. Luckily I had a Schwarzbier coming off a yeast cake and dumped a bunch of that in and it finished out great. I say go big, just grow as much as you can before brew day.

I know there's such a thing as too much, but for lagers I think it's better to err on the side of more. I was a little worried about excess yeast, so I just racked off the yeast cake as soon as it slowed down.
 
going a little bit big and blowing some off is better than not enough, having 48 hours of infectious lag time, and not attenuating to your final properly. but thats just my observation and ive never had a drain cleaner batch so i think my method of madness is effective.
 
Yeah, considering the mrmalty.com calculator said I needed 6 smack packs of yeast with no starter I figured I better go big!

I did a 1 quart starter for 24 hours, then added 3 more quarts for another 24. This yeast was just going through the sugar like mad! By 24 hours it had flocculated and krausen was gone. Just popped it in the fridge, a good amount of yeast on the bottom. I will decant Saturday night, and let it warm up to fermentation temp and add another 2 liters of wort and let it go at 50 degrees which should get me a little more growth and it will be ready to keep reproducing when it hits the 5 gallons of wort....at least I hope so! :)
 
I just did a baltic porter that started at 1.092. I used a starter, but it wasn't big enough and it petered out around 1.040. Luckily I had a Schwarzbier coming off a yeast cake and dumped a bunch of that in and it finished out great. I say go big, just grow as much as you can before brew day.

I know there's such a thing as too much, but for lagers I think it's better to err on the side of more. I was a little worried about excess yeast, so I just racked off the yeast cake as soon as it slowed down.

I agree about the lagers. For big ones (dopplebock) I brew something like a boh pils at SG 1.045 and then use about 1/2 the resulting yeast cake to pitch the dopplebock. You treat the little beer like its a big starter...

GT
 
I did crash cool the starter, the yeast hit the bottom fast. Let it cool for 36 hours and decanted before I started to brew. Added 2 liters 1.040 wort and let it start working on that at fermentation temp, 50 degrees. After a few hours I could see it producing some C02. It went for about 13 hours, which is when I had my doppelbock down to 52 and ready to pitch.

Pitched the starter and 7 hours later it was working very slowly at 50. Checked again at 15 hours and it was chugging away with a nice 1/2" layer of krausen and a tiny bit of yeast on top. At 21 hours it was 3/4" of krausen and a lot of yeast on the top. At 48 hours it looks like someone blew a load of diarrhea into my carboy and I am trying to process it...not pretty. Can't say the freezer it is in smells to good either, and if you put your head in there to check it out the C02 burns your nose....a very pleasant experience! :)
 
Lager yeasts typ produce more sulphur (which dissipates)...but it stinks to high-heaven when it's going strong.

I've got the first stage (of three total) of a Bock starter going right now. That brew will be the weekend after this upcoming one.

I recently read a Wyeast 'expert' say that he thought 2206 can have a bit too much fruitiness in high-grav brews...but tons of folks use it. I just used it in a 15 degree Plato Marzen (not really that big) so we'll see...in about 6 months.:D
 
Back
Top