Help! My starter is too small!

[Culln5]

Hey guys,
24 hours ago I made a 2l starter (my first) with 2 cups of DME and 8 cups of water, and placed it on my stirplate. I am using Mexican Lager yeast WLP940. So, I sit down to enter everything into Beer Smith and see that my yeast is out of date (12/26/13). Beer Smith says that I need 362.3 billion cells for my 1.049 SG. Using the date 08/26/13, 2l starter on a stirplate, yields me 194.8 billion cells. How do I make up 167.5 billion cells when I am brewing tomorrow? On a side note, I am brewing my first lager so I assume it wouldn't hurt to cool the wort (50) for 12-24 hours before I pitch.... So maybe I have 2 days?

George

 

[sikkingj]

I see two options, 1) buy an extra vial to pitch or 2) step up your starter.

Stepping up, means , once it has fermenter, cold crash and decant the liquid and place smother starter on the yeast bed. This is your cheapest option, but will take you another 3-4 days.

If you only have 1 or 2 days, buy the extra vial. Remember lagers require larger starters because they ferment colder.

I hope this helps.

 

[sfgoat]

If all you have is a 2L flask you are going to need a few days to step the starter. I generally always make a 5L starter for any lager. I would recommend going to your local bakery and seeing if they have any empty 2gal glaze buckets that they could spare one of that way you can do a full starter in one step. Other wise you will need to allow a couple days for the yeast to pick up and consume that first flask of wort then you need to refrigerate it to let the yeast drop and decant the wort and add another bit up wort and let that ferment out. I would still brew and just keep the wort sealed up in the fermenter while you step up your starter. Just run a search for stepping a starter and you will find a ton of info on it.

 

[Culln5]

Stepping up, means , once it has fermenter, cold crash and decant the liquid and place smother starter on the yeast bed.

How do I know when the starter has finished and it is time to step up?


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[sfgoat]

How do I know when the starter has finished and it is time to step up?


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Well you could check the gravity but I usually just call it good once the krausen has fallen.

 

[Culln5]

Well you could check the gravity but I usually just call it good once the krausen has fallen.

I don't mean to sound naive, but I'm not sure I know how to tell if the krausen has fallen.

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[sfgoat]

Usually there will be a ring of tiny bubbles or trub stuck to the side of the vessel above the liquid line where the krausen would have risen and then fell.

 

[Culln5]

This is what it currently looks like....

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[sfgoat]

Those bubbles are the krausen. Once those dissipate you can call it good because at that point any yeast propagation taking place will be negligible. That is when you should stick it in the fridge to let it settle and then start another one with your new yeast.

 

[Culln5]

Ok, the krausen has fallen and I have refrigerated it overnight in my kegerator. Is this ready to decant?

Now for the unsettling part..... I have discovered that I do not have any DME left to step this up. My HBS is not open today and the only person I know that may have some is out also. However, I do have some LME for my recipe.

Can I use my LME to step this up? I'm guessing I can and the conversion would be 20-25%?? Use 1-1/2 cups LME to 8 cups of water? And then instead of decanting it I would pitch the whole thing?

George

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[sfgoat]

Still a lot of yeast in suspension in this pic. But otherwise your info is good. I would still decant your next step though. Some just pitch the whole thing and you certainly can but my preference is to decant.

 

[sikkingj]

Just to echo SFGoat, decant so you are not adding in a liter plus of stale beer into your wort - your only interested in the yeast part of the starter.

How much of a taste difference will 5 percent make - I'm not sure, but your going through a lot of trouble now, so you might as well do it totally proper.

Remember tell us all how it turns out, I love seeing the pictures.

 

[Culln5]

Well..... I decanted.... Then stepped up with my LME and it got a bit aggressive...... The largest container I had was my LME jug..... It fit in and with a little maneuvering I was able to get the stirbar spinning.

Is this going to be ok?

George

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[sikkingj]

As long as everything in the starter was sanitized you are golden, just remember to decant off the excess beer from the starter - it looks like a monster. Once decanted to get the yeast back in suspension, you can add a little water if needed and put it back on the stirplate to get everything moving.

 

[sfgoat]

As long as everything in the starter was sanitized you are golden, just remember to decant off the excess beer from the starter - it looks like a monster. Once decanted to get the yeast back in suspension, you can add a little water if needed and put it back on the stirplate to get everything moving.

What he said.

 

[Jayhem]

Looks good to me. Yea the biggest thing with Lager brewing is the amount of yeast you need! 3-4X as much as ales!

I never do starters in flasks, they are over priced and it would suck to break a $50 flask! I just use a 4L glass jar that I found at the store for $8. It works great on my DIY stirplate.

 

[Culln5]

As long as everything in the starter was sanitized you are golden, just remember to decant off the excess beer from the starter - it looks like a monster. Once decanted to get the yeast back in suspension, you can add a little water if needed and put it back on the stirplate to get everything moving.

OK, I threw some star san into the jug before I transferred it so I believe it to be sterile. I didn't plan on decanting it this time because I used 12 ounces of LME out of my recipe and I wanted to put it back in. Does this seem like it will be an issue?

George

 

[sfgoat]

No it's fine. It is stale beer but it should be ok if you pitch the whole thing. Especially if you accounted for the difference in volume.

 

[brian320fo]

I had the same thoughts as the OP. This is also my first starter. I made it Saturday, fermented on a stir plate for 24 hours, crashed for 12 hours then warmed back up to pitching temp (50* for a Bohemian Lager (Wyeast Labs #2124)). I was surprised at how little yeast there was at the bottom of the flask. I decanted the top 1200ml off and pitched 800ml of slurry but was a bit nervous about the quantity so direct pitched another smack pack just in case. I had visible fermentation in less than 12 hours so it couldn't have been too bad. Is this what the quantity of yeast looks like after doing a starter on a stir plate?

 

[sfgoat]

Yeah that's about right.

 

[Culln5]

Well I pitched my whole stepped up starter into my primary tonight. Now I'll just keep my fingers crossed that it gets the job done. The krausen dropped off much quicker on the step up.

George

 

[sfgoat]

Well I pitched my whole stepped up starter into my primary tonight. Now I'll just keep my fingers crossed that it gets the job done. The krausen dropped off much quicker on the step up.

George

It should be faster in each consecutive step because more yeast is present. It'll be fine. RDWHAHB.

 

[Culln5]

RDWHAHB

LOL.... I had to look that one up...

 

[Culln5]

OK......

So my OG was 1.047 and I missed my estimated 1.050 OG by 0.003. Is this a result of me taking out that 12 ounces of LME and using it for my step up starter? Now, I did pitch the entire stepped up starter, so how will this affect my graivity numbers? Will I gain points? My estimated FG is 1.013.

This fermentation was screwed up from the get go and I will NEVER buy a discounted or outdated vial again!

• Yeast was out of date by 3 weeks
• Needed 362.3 billion cells, first starter yeilded 182.9 billion cells (stirplate)
• Used a 8 cup water/2 cup pilsen DME starter (2 days for the krausen to fall)
• Refriderated 2 days in the kegerator
• Had no DME available to step up the starter so used 8 cups of water & 1-1/2 cups LME from the recipe and stirplate for 24 hours
• Pitched the entire 2L stepped up starter into 47 degree primary
• Brewed on Sunday, pitched on Tuesday

I plan on checking the gravity on Sunday (5 days after pitching), but am unsure what to expect. The saving grace is that I was impressed with how clear she was and I believe I am on my way to the taste I was trying to achieve.



George

 

[sfgoat]

If anything I think once you calculate in the points from the already fermented in LME you overshot your OG by a few points. LME is worth 36 points per pound in a gallon of water so 36/16=2.25*12=27/5=5.4 additional gravity points. So it looks ok there. It wont show it in your hydrometer because it is already fermented out. But your FG should be ok without additional calculation. When I plug all of your yeast stuff in I came out with between 500 and 600 billion cells depending on the viability of the yeast as long as you used a 2 step 2L starter. So really you came out on top of this one and you should pat yourself on the back.

As for purchasing expired yeast, it is the only liquid yeast I purchase and is almost always fine as long as you use a starter. I would just go to a local bakery and ask if you can have an empty glaze bucket as those are 2gal buckets and fit nicely on a stir plate. Then you wont have to worry about stepping your starters.

Congrats, you made beer and I'm sure the finished product will be great.

Give it about 2 weeks before you check gravity. Lagers are slow fermenters, much slower than ales. After about 2 weeks, check your gravity and if you are consistently at the same gravity for a few days then bring the temp up to do a d-rest after a few days of d-rest is when I like to transfer my lagers to a secondary and lager for a while.

 

[sikkingj]

As SFGoat said, congratulations you made beer and from the looks of it good beer!

The rest is just perfecting your process, I wouldn't give up just yet on expired yeast, I find it is the best bargain, outside of splitting your starter to have a cloned yeast, out there.

 

[basementbrew84]

OK you guys seem like you know what you're doin... soo I am a beginner I was pitching yeast and it my have been to high 79. It has not moved in 18 hours what do I do... help please

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[sikkingj]

By no activity, you mean zero foam/bubbles? How old was the yeast? 18-hours may not be enough time to see what happens. I have some older yeast that took 5-days to resurrect.

Also I assume you are using a stirplate and are making approximately a 2L Ale starter. If I've got any of this wrong, correct me as if may impact the recommendation of letting it ride for another 24-48 hours.

 

[sfgoat]

OK you guys seem like you know what you're doin... soo I am a beginner I was pitching yeast and it my have been to high 79. It has not moved in 18 hours what do I do... help please

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Give it more time and try to cool it down some. If you pitched without a starter it can easily take up to 72 hours to see activity.

 

[Culln5]

I plan on checking the gravity on Sunday (5 days after pitching), but am unsure what to expect.

I couldn't resist..... The gravity today (day 5) was 1.028 @ 50 degrees. I need to finish at 1.013.

George