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Dropped yeast starter

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stromberg

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ImageUploadedByHome Brew1396195000.657147.jpg So I made my yeast starter the other day, Wednesday. I put it on top of the fridge to keep it safe and out of the way, which proved to be more fatal.

It fell off as I opened the door, and I caught it midway after it tumbled down. The picture is the result of the remaining starter. My question is should I bother with what I have, or count my losses and order some new yeast? I was planning on brewing today, but not looking to waste my batch..


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I would estimate that you at least back the original 100 billion since you have about half of the contents remaining. I'm willing to bet that you retained more than half of the progress since some was probably flocculated and didn't have a chance to spill out.

Give some details on the beer you're planning on brewing, the expected OG, batch volume, and again of yeast. You might be fine to brew
 
This is just my second brew, it's a northern brewer American wheat kit. It's a 5 gallon batch and OG is supposed to be 1.043 and I was using White Labs WLP320 American Hefeweizen

I guess my concern is contamination, and if there is still enough yeast to do the job..

Thanks for the help


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An ale of those specifics should need about 150 billion cells for a 1 million/ml/°P. This is considered plenty of yeast for an ale. Many brewers/breweries use a 0.75 mill/ml/°P ratio would would mean 113 billion cells. So you're aiming for 113-150 billion cells for pitching into your beer.

Based on the krausen ring, and your timeline, the starter looks like it was close to finished. I'm assuming this started was not swirled/stirred because the ring looks pretty solidified; so it probably just sat still and did it's thing. The jar looks to be a quart but the half-gallon jars look about the same; I'll assume it's a quart jar. This would mean you used about 3 cups of starter wort.

Assumptions:
-Non-stirred/swirled starter
-0.75 quarts of starter wort
-Good viability on yeast
-Starter was complete when it fell

Using the above assumptions, and according to yeast starter calculators for growth rate in non-stirred starters, you may have reached around 130 billion cells; most of which were flocculated to the bottom of the jar. If you lost half of the cells then you would be around 65 billion cells which I would not consider to be enough cells. If most of the cells had flocced out and remained in the jar (i.e. you lost mostly spent wort) then let's assume 25% loss which would leave you with about 100 billion cells, which is still on the lower end of the range.

Just in terms of pitching rate, I would say your marginal for the number of yeast cells for a "proper" pitching rate. You would still make beer if you decided to just use your starter, and if you kept fermentation temperatures in check with good aeration then you may not notice a difference between non-proper and proper pitching rate in this beer. Lots of beer have been successfully brewed with that kind of pitching rate.

At this point, the choice is up to you on how to proceed.

As to contamination chances, this will rely solely on your handling of the yeast starter and if you think it somehow got contaminated before/during/after it's fall from your fridge. Contaminants don't fly into your starter, they have to fall into your starter so if it remained covered the whole time and it just leaked out around the tin foil then I wouldn't worry about contamination. You would want to be certain that you clean the lip of the jar using a sanitized paper towel (or something) prior to pitching.

How you proceed is very much up to you. If you don't mind a little chance, then let it ride and see what happens. If you don't want to take chances, then do something different.

I know this is somewhat vague but it really is a personal choice. I'm not certain what I would do. If I thought the starter was not contaminated then I might mix up a small amount of starter wort, add to the jar, give it a day or two, and then use it as is; then again, I might not. :D
 
The starter was swirl on occasion, I work from about 7am till 8-9pm everyday so I had my wife swirl when she walked by, or when I texted her to remind her haha. But as far as contamination goes based off what you said I feel it most likely isn't, I'll just sanitize the lip before I pitch, it is a quart jar. Don't have a stir plate but am going to look into getting one soon.

I'm just going to go with it, as I tend to be a gambling man. Beer has been brewed for thousands of years and ultimately comes down chances and learning from mistakes, IMO

Thanks for the help though, really appreciate it, and if anything I'll take this as a learning experiment. Batch 2 of many to come

Cheers!


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I guess one last question would be:

I've read about decanting, and just dumping everything in. With my situation would you just advise dumping everything in? Or still decanting and creating the slurry to pitch?


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If you're decanting, did you have time to let it settle? If not, dump it all in.
 
I've swirled it recently and there is a layer on bottom of the jar. I was figuring I might just throw it all in, seeing as I may have lost some when it fell.


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I generally like to crash cool and decant, but given your situation I would add everything I possibly could in terms of yeast cells. Two cups of starter wort won't change anything in a 5 gallon batch. I've pitched 1L starters without decanting on occasion without any negative side effects from the best I could tell.
 
Alright well we'll just see how it goes then, hoping for the best


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