How many times can you step up a starter?

[permo]

i am currently taking a very small amount of bottle cultured yeast starting the process of stepping it up. I first started wtih 16 oz of water at 4 tbsp of DME. I now have a nice yeast culture growing and it is starting to ferment. I was now thinking of adding 32 oz of water with 1 cup of DME to keep growing a larger yeast collection. I was then going to at 64 oz water wtih 2 cups DME to ge myself up to nearly a gallon of starter.

I would then cold crash it and harvest the yeast for later.

Is this a bad idea? It sounds good to me, but this is kind a new process to me.

 

[Gremlyn]

Probably OK, as long as the yeast don't get stressed out, have good gas exchange, and have plenty of sugar to munch on they will be fine. You could always skip the 32oz step and go straight to the 64z (or 96oz total if you want to combine the two). The biggest issue when stepping up yeast is going to be sterility, so as long as you are careful, you can step up a few times without any problems.

If you want to use a lot of this yeast in the future, I'd do a couple of big step-ups and harvest it all down to make starters out of later on.

 

[Saccharomyces]

Stepping up multiple times is a great idea in a case like this where you are starting with few viable yeast cells. The steps give the yeast a chance to go through the whole fermentation process and flocc, so you will end up propagating the most healthy cells that will do the job for you.

If you are going to do this sort of thing a lot I recommend using a stir plate, it makes a big difference. You can build them for about $30 or buy one for about $40.

 

[permo]

Stepping up multiple times is a great idea in a case like this where you are starting with few viable yeast cells. The steps give the yeast a chance to go through the whole fermentation process and flocc, so you will end up propagating the most healthy cells that will do the job for you.

If you are going to do this sort of thing a lot I recommend using a stir plate, it makes a big difference. You can build them for about $30 or buy one for about $40.

I am glad to hear this will be a worthwhile process.

I am certainly going to have to look into making a stir plate. I shake the starter up all the time, basically whenever I am in my brewing room.