How long on stir plate?

[kmiller4u]

I recently made a starter for a black IPA. I left it on stir plate for roughly 28 hrs and immediately put it in the fridge after. It sat for about five days before I brewed. On brew day I removed starter from fridge, decanted and it sat on counter for a couple hours before pitching. After about a day in a half, I noticed very little/ no activity. Assuming the starter was undersized, I added another package of WYEAST 1056. After about a day, again very little activity. So.... Did I prematurely remove original starter from stir plate??


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[jjw5015]

You didnt prematurely remove it as much as you prematurely made it. 48 hrs before would be best and you can pitch at high krausen.

 

[Jayhem]

How big was the starter and how much wort was it pitched to at what OG gravity?

Usually when I use my stir plate it takes 24-30 hours from start to finish if I keep it warm (70-77F)

 

[kmiller4u]

It was about a 1.2 ltr starter. The recipe stated an OG of 1.064 ( I was at 1.060). In the past, I've gone up to a week if needed if I couldn't brew right away and the starter still took off rather quickly.


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[Indian_villager]

Sit back relax and let the buggers do their thing. They are not dead, just waking up.

 

[kombat]

You didnt prematurely remove it as much as you prematurely made it. 48 hrs before would be best and you can pitch at high krausen.

I disagree - 48 hours will be waaaay past high krausen for a starter on a stir plate.

Firstly, high krausen on a stir plate will typically happen between 16-20 hours. By 24-36 hours, it'll be completely done.

Secondly, I don't like pitching at high krausen anyway, because that is introducing a lot of potentially bad-tasting starter beer into my main batch. I prefer to let the starter finish, then cold crash the yeast and decant all that starter beer so it doesn't contaminate my main batch with its off-flavours.

 

[kombat]

OP: Did you observe any fermentation activity in the starter itself? I've had 1 case where my starter didn't ferment at all (the yeast had been frozen during transit). I checked the gravity of my starter wort before I pitched the yeast and discovered it was still at 1.040. It hadn't fermented at all. The yeast was dead. Is it possible that's what happened here with yours?

Other than that, to answer your original question, no I don't think you removed it from the stir plate too soon. At 28 hours, it was done (assuming the yeast wasn't dead). Like someone else mentioned, my main concern would be that you prepared it so far in advance, but even still, the yeast should wake up and get busy pretty quickly after being refrigerated for only a few days.

Something else is going on here.

 

[kmiller4u]

Starter was almost milky white after the 28 hrs on stir plate. One note, when I took cover off to add the other package of 1056. I did notice foamy build up occurring. So maybe just slow fermentation going on here?? I did not take a reading right then.


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[Jayhem]

Yeast that froze in shipping is very likely this time of year especially with how cold the winter has been in much of the country.

 

[kmiller4u]

This yeast packet for starter was slightly frozen when it arrived.


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