How can I make my yeast starter last?

[mcjake]

So I optomisticly made a yeast starter for some pacman yeast that was due to expire at the end of the month. Now I have to travel for work and I'm worried I wont time to brew. The starter is currently 3 days old and I would need to stretch it out for another two weeks. What can I do to make it survive? Add more wort? Cold crash it and leave it in the fridge? Both?

Any advice would be welcome. Thanks.

 

[Brewsmith]

Throw it in the fridge, and then the day before or the morning of brew day, pour off the spent wort, add a little fresh wort to wake up the yeast and get them going again. Then just pitch the whole thing.

 

[944play]

RDWHAHB, two weeks is nothing. Just cover it tightly without sealing, say with a balloon, and stick it in the fridge. Optionally, wake it back up with a little fresh wort at the beginning of brewday. After two MONTHS, you would definitely want to wake it....

 

[devilishprune]

I'm in the same position. I don't remember when I harvested my pacman yeast, but I made a large starter from it and just stuck it in the fridge. Mainly this was due to a sulfurous odor that I was getting from the yeast so I didn't want to waste potentially 5 gallons of beer by using it.

Still, I can't bring myself to just throw it away,so there it sits, staring at me from the back of the fridge. I might end up using it to ferment a smaller 2.5-3 gallon batch and see how it does.

At any rate, what I was planning on doing was just adding some starter wort to it to wake it up a day or 2 before I pitched it; that way, the yeast would be ready to go and not sleepy from being in the fridge for so long.