Debate About Yeast Starters

wps-hbt
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.
WVBeerBaron

WVBeerBaron

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jul 15, 2009
Messages
129
Reaction score
2
Location
WV
Seems like eveyone and their brother stresses about making a yeast starter. I have around two dozen 5 gallon batches under my belt, with 10 or so being partial mash or all-grain. I have never made a starter. I use White Labs or Wyeast everytime and have never had an trouble. Even with an OG of .080 I pitched a single tube of WL and it ate its way through in one week.

Now, granted, I have had a few slow starts, where it takes two or three days to finally see the 1st bubble out of the air lock, but that's the most trouble I've ever had.

I see people recommending a starter for OG's of .040 .....why?

I may be missing out on some vital piece of info, but if not, then making a starter just seems like a higher chance of infecting my beer by adding more things to the cooled wort.

Seems like unless I'm in .070 OG territory there's no need for one.

Dry yeast is a whole other story.

Please don't kill me.
 
We won't kill you, but you should know that your idea is not totally correct. Yes you can brew with one tube to very high gravities. You could also brew with bread yeast....

It is about the compounds that the yeast produce during respiration and fermentation. Your woefully low pitching rates for those higher gravity beers will affect the flavor profile more than you think. It is all about good beer.

The simplest place IMO to get info about yeast starters and pitching rates is from mrmalty.com
 
When I started brewing, liquid yeasts had cell counts around 10B cells. Now they can be anywhere from 25B to 125B and can do a good job without a starter. One of the reasons I went to dry yeast almost exclusively is I brewed with a friend and very often with little or no planning. Now, I'm an hour from a brew shop and only brew when a keg kicks. So dry still makes more sense.
 
WVBeerBaron said:
I have never made a starter. I use White Labs or Wyeast everytime and have never had an trouble. Even with an OG of .080 I pitched a single tube of WL and it ate its way through in one week.
Click to expand...

Care to post any score sheets from BJCP competitions? I'd like to see someone who pitches a 1.080 wort with one tube of yeast do well in competition.

I'm not trying to be a prick or anything. You beer might taste great. But I guarantee the same 1.080 beer would taste better in a side by side if the correct amount of yeast and kept all other factors the same.
 
WVBeerBaron - making good beer is easy - making great beer there are thousands of little things you can do to tweak a beer just a little better. They all add up. Fermentation temp, proper yeast, a ton of things that by themselves do little but . . . .
 
The biggest reason I suggest folks make a starter is if you make one you'll have peace of mind.

And you won't be starting an "is my yeast dead" thread in a couple of days.:D

Making a starter first insures that your yeast is still alive and viable before you dump it in your beer. You will be less likely to start one of those "is my yeast dead?" threads that are on here every day.

You will also ensure that you have enough yeast usually the tubes and smack packs are a lot less yeast that you really should use for healthy fermentation.

Making a starter also usually means your beer will take off sooner, because the first thing that the little buggers do in the presence of wort (whether in a flask or in a fermenter) is have an orgy to reproduce enough cells to do the job...So it won't take such a long time in the fermenter since they started doing it in the flask.

Additionally it is better for the yeast to consume and reproduce incrementally rather than just dumping them into the fermenter...The yeast will be less stressed out than if you just dump them in.

Stressed out yeast can lead to a lot of off flavors...maybe even (though rare) the dreaded autolysis....Or the curse of 1.030....getting a stuck fermentation because the yeast have bit the dust.

So making a starter proves your yeast is still healthy, allows you to grow enough yeast to do the job, cuts down on lag time, and ensures that you will not get off flavors or stuck ferementations from stressed out yeast.
 
I agree that a starter is the safe way to go. I'd always recommend one. That said, there was an interesting article in the Jan/Feb issue of BYO that seemed to yield some counterintuitive results. This was on a more antedotal level since the data was a really small sample set.According to the article, during the tasting on Basic Brewing Radio they could identify the differences between the beers at different pitching rates, but couldn't discern a pattern of decreasing esters at high pitch rates. Haven't listened to the brewcast myself, though.
 
I rarely make anything but 1.050-1.06+ beers and I've never had a problem and I've never made a starter (despite having made a cool stirplate). My beers develop a yeast head within 24 hours and they taste great when they are done. It's on the yeast cake for three weeks, so may be some of the funky stuff gets eaten. It works for me so I don't see the point in spending time putting a starter together. If I had more time to brew, I would happily brew a starter beer and then reuse the yeast cake, but that isn't going to happen any time soon... I'm ok with keeping it simple.
 
Honestly, there's a dividing line between "making beer that I like to drink" and "making beer that will score well according to BJCP guidelines".

When it comes down to brewing as a hobby... if you truly enjoy the beer you make, and you feel the added steps aren't worth the effort, then keep on keepin' on! No one can dispute your taste.

However, there are some advantages to making a starter for liquid yeasts which have been stated fairly well thusfar, and it's only worth your time and effort to give starters a try if you want to improve upon the beer you're making. This could be because you're tasting off-flavors in your beer and want to improve it, or you might find some brewbuddies who have a discerning palate, or you may even want to enter into competitions.

In such a case, should you want to... starters aren't really all that much extra work (unless you want it to be... I mean, building a stirplate is "cool", but not required). Regarding the risk involved in exposing your wort to infection, the most basic of sanitation principles are more than enough to make this a non-issue. Besides, in my humble opinion, the benefits outweigh the risks.

But, like I said, if you're happy with your beer, then you shouldn't feel any outside pressure to change your methods. The pressure to change your methods should only come from within.

I sounded so Zen, just now. I think I should right a book... "Zen and the Art of Getting Your Buzz On."
 
WVBeerBaron said:
I see people recommending a starter for OG's of .040 .....why?
Click to expand...

Oh I just realized that no one actually answered this particular question.

The reasons why you should make a starter really has to do with the actual pitch rates of the smack packs and tubes, and has to do with the data that Jamil Z has on his mr malty website.

I'll quote some of it, but really you should look at the stuff there;

http://www.mrmalty.com/pitching.php

Ales & Lagers

The general consensus on pitching rates is that you want to pitch around 1 million cells of viable yeast, for every milliliter of wort, for every degree plato. A little less for an ale, a little more for a lager. George Fix states about 1.5 million for a lager and 0.75 million for an ale in his book, An Analysis of Brewing Techniques. Other literature cites a slightly higher amount. I'm going with Fix's numbers and that is what the pitching calculator uses.
The Math

If you're curious, here is the simple math to calculate the number of cells needed. For an ale, you want to pitch around 0.75 million cells of viable yeast (0.75 million for an ale, 1.5 million for a lager), for every milliliter of wort, for every degree plato.

(0.75 million) X (milliliters of wort) X (degrees Plato of the wort)

* There is about 3785 milliliters in a gallon. There are about 20,000 milliliters in 5.25 gallons.

* A degree Plato is about 1.004 of original gravity. Just divide the OG by 4 to get Plato (e.g., 1.048 is 12 degrees Plato).

So, for a 1.048 wort pitching into 5.25 gallons you need about 180 billion cells.

(750,000) X (20,000) X (12) = 180,000,000,000

As an easy to remember rough estimate, you need about 15 billion cells for each degree Plato or about 4 billion cells for each point of OG when pitching into a little over 5 gallons of wort. If you want a quick way of doing a back of the envelope estimate, that is really close to 0.75 billion cells for each point of gravity per gallon of wort. Double that to 1.5 billion for a lager.
Pitching From Tubes, Packs, or Dry Yeast

Both White Labs and Wyeast make fantastic products and you can't go wrong with either one. There are differences between their strains and each brand has pluses and minuses yet neither is better than the other across the board. Use the brand your local homebrew shop carries, if you need a way to decide.

A White Labs tube has between 70 and 120 billion cells of 100% viable yeast, depending on the yeast strain. Some cells are much larger than others and there are more or less per ml based on size. (The information on the White Labs web site stating 30 to 50 billion cells is out of date.) We can just assume there are around 100 billion very healthy yeast. You would need 2 tubes if you were pitching directly into 5.5 gallons of 1.048 wort to get the proper cell counts.

A Wyeast Activator pack (the really big ones) and the pitchable tubes have an average of 100 billion cells of 100% viable yeast. The smaller packs are around 15-18 billion cells. You would need 2 of the large packs if you were pitching directly into 5.5 gallons of 1.048 wort to get the proper cell counts. For the small packs, you'd need eleven of them!
Click to expand...

But to make it easier he has a great pitch rate calculator http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html

And according to his numbers on his calculator, really any beer above 1.020, you should be making a starter for.

Like others have said, it's really not a debate, you can brew however you want no one's forcing you to make a starter.

Me personally when I use liquid yeast I make a starter. I may not be as anal as some brewers and makes sure that I have the exact cellcount for whatever gravity beer I am making, but I do make one for the above reasons I mentioned, namely peace of mid, and a reduction in lag time.
 
I've never seen anyone argue that they make better beer without a starter.

It seems to me to almost always be about being lazy. Don't really see the point in NOT making a starter other than that: laziness. I think the only other argument I've seen is just not having enough time because of not planning ahead properly, which I guess I can understand. But the laziness thing, I just don't get it. Making the beer itself is so much more work. Seems pointless to possibly have a beer not turn out as good because of some initial task (making a starter) that's pretty easy and doesn't really take much time.
 
MattHollingsworth said:
I've never seen anyone argue that they make better beer without a starter.

It seems to me to almost always be about being lazy. Don't really see the point in NOT making a starter other than that: laziness. I think the only other argument I've seen is just not having enough time because of not planning ahead properly, which I guess I can understand. But the laziness thing, I just don't get it. Making the beer itself is so much more work. Seems pointless to possibly have a beer not turn out as good because of some initial task (making a starter) that's pretty easy and doesn't really take much time.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I agree. It usually is a new brewer who brings this up, not someone who's been brewing for awhile. The tend to have seen an improvement in their beers, even if it's just a reduction of lag time, the first time they make one.

Really it just means you plan a couple days ahead of brew day and make a starter. It really is not more than a 20 minute job to boil and cool 2 cups of wort and sanitize a vessel.
 
Revvy said:
Yeah, I agree. It usually is a new brewer who brings this up, not someone who's been brewing for awhile. The tend to have seen an improvement in their beers, even if it's just a reduction of lag time, the first time they make one.

Really it just means you plan a couple days ahead of brew day and make a starter. It really is not more than a 20 minute job to boil and cool 2 cups of wort and sanitize a vessel.
Click to expand...

Yeah, agreed. I plan ahead but then I have to play the exact day by ear in case of bad weather. But I make a starter and chill it about 48 hours ahead of time to drop out, then pitch only slurry. So, if I *did* have to delay by a day or two, the starter's still good anyway. Haven't had to delay yet though.

Honestly, I think the "no starter" thing is partially White Labs and Wyeast's own fault. When White Labs first came out, they were marketing heavily on the "pitchable" thing. Before that, Wyeast had only those smaller packs (from what I recall) and they said to make a starter. Then when they started to lose market share to White Labs, Wyeast also came out with these tubes of yeast that looked like a sort of hand lotion container or sorts, and they also said they were pitchable. Wyeast has since gone back to the smack packets but has the XL size now. Anyway, before that all went on, I don't remember a lot of people NOT making starters. Don't get me wrong, I love White Labs and Wyeast yeast, but I think it's this sort of marketing thing that may have lead some newer brewers to not make starters...
 
Well, there was the vital piece of info I was missing:

higher pitching rates = better flavor or less off flavors

This was news to me.

Seemed like a smaller amount of yeast would eventually multiply itself up enough to get the job done either way with the same resulting flavor, but the point is more yeast at pitch time means better tasting beer apparently.

This was not out of laziness, I just didn't see the point until now. I've had 2 or 3 batches that turned out tasting like a band-aids, so I thought the less that touches the unfermented beer the better, but if a starter means better flavor I'd rather double up on sanitation and make a starter.
 
You are exactly right. Low pitching rates can = stresses yeast. Bandaid phenols could very well come from that. I'd also check your water for cholorine or chloramine if you are constantly getting phenolic beer. If your water has chloramines, I like campden tablets to get rid of it. Bacteria can cause it, but since the reason you really started this thread was related to sanitation concerns, I'm sure you have that under control.
 
I solve this problem by brewing a 5 gal batch of 1.030-35 as my starter. I don't have to make a 1-2 liter starter, I get to drink it after only a couple weeks, and it tides me over until the larger beer is ready to drink :)
 
WVBeerBaron said:
higher pitching rates = better flavor or less off flavors
Click to expand...

No, CORRECT pitching rates = better flavor or less off flavors. There is such thing as pitching too much yeast, giving you very little flavor development. Beyond that, far, far too much will also mean poor yeast health, as there isn't enough nutrients to go around.
 
MattHollingsworth said:
I've never seen anyone argue that they make better beer without a starter.

It seems to me to almost always be about being lazy. Don't really see the point in NOT making a starter other than that: laziness.
Click to expand...

Look, if there is one thing the dude most certainly is, it's lazy.

It's not like I'm saying I make great beer without sanitizing.

I am admittedly a new brewer with only twelve AG batches brewed. Some of you guys probably brew that much every three months. I'm aware of the number of yeast you are supposed to pitch; It's just that I've been impressed with how quickly fermentations start (18-24 hours) without doing so and how clean the beer tastes.

When I first started brewing I heard and read a lot about yeast autolysis and the need to get beer off the yeast cake following primary fermentation. I learned from this site that it is common practice to leave beer in the primary for three or four weeks and then bottle or keg, giving the yeast time to consume some of the nastier products of initial fermentation. No muss or fuss and admittedly downright lazy.

I've seen a lot of excerpts from websites and books in this thread stating how much yeast should be pitched but has anyone done a semi objective test? Like brewing a ten gallon batch of a 1.048 ale, pitching one wyeast packet in one carboy and two in another, then judging how much of an impact the additional yeast makes.
 
ElDuderino said:
I've seen a lot of excerpts from websites and books in this thread stating how much yeast should be pitched but has anyone done a semi objective test? Like brewing a ten gallon batch of a 1.048 ale, pitching one wyeast packet in one carboy and two in another, then judging how much of an impact the additional yeast makes.
Click to expand...

Like I said earlier, check out the Jan/Feb issue of BYO. This is essentially what Chris Colby and Co. does.
 
off topic slightly---I think i might start using two packages of yeast so my starters arn't so effing large and save myself the DME
 
ElDuderino said:
Look, if there is one thing the dude most certainly is, it's lazy.

It's not like I'm saying I make great beer without sanitizing.

I am admittedly a new brewer with only twelve AG batches brewed. Some of you guys probably brew that much every three months. I'm aware of the number of yeast you are supposed to pitch; It's just that I've been impressed with how quickly fermentations start (18-24 hours) without doing so and how clean the beer tastes.

When I first started brewing I heard and read a lot about yeast autolysis and the need to get beer off the yeast cake following primary fermentation. I learned from this site that it is common practice to leave beer in the primary for three or four weeks and then bottle or keg, giving the yeast time to consume some of the nastier products of initial fermentation. No muss or fuss and admittedly downright lazy.

I've seen a lot of excerpts from websites and books in this thread stating how much yeast should be pitched but has anyone done a semi objective test? Like brewing a ten gallon batch of a 1.048 ale, pitching one wyeast packet in one carboy and two in another, then judging how much of an impact the additional yeast makes.
Click to expand...

The difference there being that the *reason* for not doing a secondary, which I also don't do, is because the beer is certainly not worse off. I did 90 something beers with a secondary and have now done about a dozen without and I see no difference either way.

hbomb said:
Like I said earlier, check out the Jan/Feb issue of BYO. This is essentially what Chris Colby and Co. does.
Click to expand...

From what I recall, they had pretty good results across the board. But that hasn't been my personal experience. Early in my homebrew life, 12-13 years ago, I had a number of beers where I under pitched. Still did starters but with some of them the starters were too small. And I had some beers get stuck at 1.020 when they should've gone to 1.010 or something. So, that's my experience and I learned from it directly. Some people might make decent beers with no starters. But that same beer might be better with a starter. Me, I choose not to risk it because making a starter is so easy and because I've personally seen beers turn out worse because of not making a large enough starter.

Anyway, my 2 cents.
 
Nothing monumental to say, but just wanted to add that I just brewed a saison and did a couple 2 quart starters (1 per carboy). I haven't had the pleasure of tasting it yet, but I was completely impressed by how quickly fermentation took off and how vigorous it was. I thought it was going to be more trouble than it was. Seems like a moot point now...

Thanks for the inspiration.
 
ElDuderino said:
Nothing monumental to say, but just wanted to add that I just brewed a saison and did a couple 2 quart starters (1 per carboy). I haven't had the pleasure of tasting it yet, but I was completely impressed by how quickly fermentation took off and how vigorous it was. I thought it was going to be more trouble than it was. Seems like a moot point now...

Thanks for the inspiration.
Click to expand...

Glad it's working out! See? Wasn't so difficult!
 

Similar threads

D
Yeast starter calc...some problema about inoculation rate
Replies
5
Views
468
IslandLizard
IslandLizard
Tony B
Overbuild starter from dry yeast
Replies
8
Views
807
fluketamer
F
storytyme
Yeast starter issue
Replies
0
Views
583
storytyme
storytyme
apache_brew
Done with liquid yeast
2 3
Replies
119
Views
9K
user 341102
U
A
Question about Lalvin 71b yeast
Replies
2
Views
299
Autumnridgewine
A
Williams Brewing 300

Latest posts

Back
Top