Brewing this morning, need starter advice!

[permo]

So I have a 1 gallon pacman starter that I started late on Monday evening as a quart. I have stepped it up and so on over the course of 3 days and put in the fridge last night to crash it.

Turns out, Pacman obviously wasn't completely done and the yeast is still very much in suspension. I am not sure what to do at this point. I ferment in glass carboys that I rig with blowoff tubes, I don't have room to pitch the entire 1 gallon starter. I do have maybe a 1/4 inch thick ring of yeast on the bottom, but surely not completely flocced.


What should I do? Brew tomorow? Decant, and pitch whatever yeast has flocced and risk underpitching and IPA? Pitch the yeast and supplement with a pack of dry notty?

 

[knightbeer39]

Well, if you can wait until tomorrow, then that might be your best option to crash the yeast. Otherwise, you could just poor off some of the liquid (and yes, some of the suspended yeast) to an acceptable volume then swirl it around and pitch it. It will probably be plenty.

 

[logdrum]

No expert here, but if it were me, I would do one of the following:

-put off brewing til the starter clears
-make the wort, cool, refrigerate & pitch the slurry when the starter clears
-brew as normal, pour off the cloudy starter into a sanitized jar for future use (no sense wasting), pitch the 1/4" of slurry. Bottom line for me is that I wouldn't want a gallon of alien wort compromising all of my deliberate work. You don't say how big of a batch, but 1/4" of yeast in the bottom of a gallon jug should be plenty.

-d

 

[permo]

This is a five gallon batch of 1.065 ish IPA. I have learned that with pacman, pitching well over the Mr Malty, reccomended amount and using plenty of nutrient and O2 are paramaount to a clean, full fermentation.

It is a 1 gallon jug so there is a lot of yeast on the bottom.

Dang pacman and it's cold fermenting ability, this happens when the starter isn't fully attenuated~! It is darned close though.

I think I will put off brew day until tomorow and hope for the best.

 

[daugenet]

I think you would be fine brewing today. But if you do decide to put it off I would do the following...

1. Check the level on your gallon container and mark it with a sharpie
2. When you feel the yeast has finished attenuating, look at high the level of yeast has risen.

This way next time you can see if it is worth worrying about

 

[permo]

screw it, I am brewing it!! There will be enough hops to hide any off flavors from underpitching, and pacman always ferments fully...I should be A-OK.