Help Please!!!!

[fpweeks]

I brewed a hennepin clone, and four days ago made a starter from two bottles of hennepin. I went to pitch today and the starter, which seems to have not really taken off, has a funny smell. Not terrible, but not full of goodness either. Starter has been sitting at about 65 degrees.

So please help....

Options:

Pitch Starter
Pitch a pack of nottingham
Monday go to homebrew store and buy a belgian wyeast (im pretty sure this is a bad option)

 

[jheist]

Are you sure it hasn't taken off or it just fermented out quickly and you didnt notice? Measure the gravity of the starter, if you have a rough idea of the OG then you should know if it worked or not. If it worked pitch it anyways, funny smells are common in fermentation. If it didn't work I would wait and get a belgian yeast tomorrow. Notty would make it drinkable beer but nothing like a belgian should be. If you have to get a belgian wyeast get two and pitch both tomorrow.

 

[fpweeks]

i dont think ill find anyplace open tomorrow....easter sunday. monday would be the soonest.

im kinda nervous about letting my baby sit for three days to get the starter....then another day before i can pitch it...

 

[psubrewer]

It's common for a starter to have no krausen or visible signs of fermentation. Mine rarely do. Check the fg if your concerned.

 

[fpweeks]

seems its hardly moved, based on my guess at where it would have started. i have another bottle of hennepin. i guess ill drink that, and try a new starter......

 

[kh54s10]

I would think that you would need to make several steps over a week or so to propagate enough yeast cells from just 2 bottles.

I have been making starters from 10 milliliters of frozen yeast. I start with 250 ml of weak wort and ferment for about 18 hours. I then chill overnight and decant the liquid. I then ferment another 250 milliliters for another 18 hours and repeat the decanting. I follow that with a .5 liter starter and decant. This gives me about the same as a vial of yeast which I use to make my final starter.

So the process takes about a week. I would expect about the same or longer if starting from the dregs from just 2 bottles.

 

[psubrewer]

At this point I would cut your losses and pitch the notty. You'll still make a tasty beer, albeit not a Belgian. I would be nervous about wort sitting at pitching temps without yeast in there. Anyway, good luck!

 

[fpweeks]

so i un-patiently waited.....by monday morning it seemed my starter was working, so i pitched it, bannana bread smell and all......this morning my baby has a nice krausen sittign on top :-D

whats that saying again.....RDWHHB

 

[SamBrewer]

Taking yeast back to life from a bottle is not as easy as it looks like... well actually is not difficult but you can't say for sure " ok I made the starter today and tomorrow I'm going to pitch it into my wort" as you would do with a starter from a liquid yeast.

the reason is that you have a small quantity of yeast left in the bottle and this yeast is not in its best condition, so it's quite usual that you have to wait some days to see any kind of activity and usually you have to prepare more than one starter.

but anyway you can say if your starter has fermented out by looking it's colour. unfermented Wort is brown and usually it as a dark sediment in the bottom, on the other hand if you can see a clear layer in the bottom ( and you have to shake vigorously it to bring it back to the solution) you can deduce that it is ready for onather starter or for pitching