Lager starter

[Wino24]

Hi all.....I'm getting ready to brew up a Pils and made my starter last night. I checked on the starter this morning and see no signs of activity. Here's what I did..if there's something wrong in my process please let me know. I realize that maybe it's just a bad batch of yeast, but the expiration date on the tube was Feb. 26 2012. The yeast is WLP802.

1. added 6oz,. light DME to 2000ml water
2. boiled for 15 mins.
3. cooled to 65*
4. pitched yeast
5. placed in basement where it's a steady 60* (I also covered it with a T-shirt to keep light out).

I pitched at about 5pm last night so I thought I would see some sign of activity by this morning, but like I said ....nothing.
Thought??? Ideas???
Thanks

 

[NordeastBrewer77]

starters aren't usually active like a beer will be. do you have a layer of yeast on the bottom of the flask? when you swirl it does it foam, or hiss? if you answered yes to either of those, your starter's fine.

 

[slarkin712]

You can keep yeast starters at higher temps than their target ferment temps. So, you can build up a lager yeast starter at 70F and not worry about the yeast not performing as expected. Just cool the starter down to pitch temp before you are ready for pitching. And swirl the yeast starter as often as you can to increase the growth rate. Also, you don't really need to keep light out of the yeast starter. You want to keep light off of a fermenting beer to avoid exposing hop compounds to light. How do you have yeast starter container covered? You want to allow gas exchange, so just use some sanitized aluminum foil over the top rather than an airlock. Other than getting a stir plate you can't do much else to ensure yeast growth.
If your yeast is very old, and thus not very viable you made need to do a multi-step starter. Based on your yeast viability I would say that you will probably have to do a multi-step starter if you're doing a 5 gallon batch. Another thing is that your starter size is a little large for the amount of viable yeast that you have. Your size will work, but it is not very efficient. Here's the site I often use for calculating pitch rates and multi-step starters: http://yeastcalc.com/
If we assume that your yeast is 30% viable and you use a 2L starter then your inoculation rate is about 15 million cell/mL, which is considered low. Using intermittent shaking of the starter will yield you about 135 billion yeast cells. This is far short of what is needed for a typical lager fermentation.
OK, sorry if I got off topic and on a pitch rate soap-box. Just check that you are getting a larger yeast layer on the bottom of the starter container to verify that it is working.

 

[Wino24]

Thanks for the responses....I'm using a 1-gallon jug and I was just giving it a swirl and 1 hour or so. I do notice a pretty good size layer on the bottom, more than I would expect from the tube itself....is it possible for the yeast to have fermented out the 2-liters overnight? Thanks

 

[NordeastBrewer77]

sure, it's possible, not the norm, but i've has starters finish up fairly fast. like i said, if you have a good yeast cake on the bottom, you're probably good to go.

 

[Wino24]

As far as the yeast layer on the bottom....I see 2 layers, one that's much thicker than the one above it. The lower layer is a tan color and the thin layer that's on top of it is a milky white. Which would be the yeast??? Thanks

 

[Bruin]

Late reply but I was looking up the same info myself. According to the White Labs site, that milky layer on top shows you've got a good starter batch going.

 

[Bruin]

Pitched a half gallon starter made with 1 cup DME into 2 quarts, 3 days at room temp then cold crashed one day. (Using WLP 820 Octobefest/Marzen). Had signs of ferm in my 5g batch within 24 hours @52* Yeast was a week away from "use by" date. Can't wait for my Octoberfest!