archthered
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Aug 7, 2013
- Messages
- 219
- Reaction score
- 65
I am making a Marzen that I originally had planned to be ready for last fall. I bought the stuff for it a while back, then life happened and I was unable to make it, I bought more yeast, then life happened again. Now I am ready to finally make my Marzen, however the yeast is old. I do not have a local Homebrew store within an hours drive so I decided I'd first try to revive what may have survived from before rather than have to wait for more yeast by mail, and of course have life get in the way again. I made a starter yesterday and added both old packets of yeast and beyond all hope I have activity and a bit of krausen.
So now that it looks like this will actually work I have a problem. When this starter is done I am making another starter with the resulting yeast, there is no way I'm hitting my pitching numbers on one round. But the question is should I pitch everything? I already have some yeast settling out, there is a greyish layer and the beginnings of a quite bright white layer. Some part of me says I should pitch the whole thing to keep my numbers as good as possible, pitching the handful of good yeast hiding in the dead, while another part of me is concerned that the inclusion of so much unhealthy yeast will end up creating problems with off flavors from unhealthy yeast, autolysis, etc. Anyway I would like to know what you all think about this.
So now that it looks like this will actually work I have a problem. When this starter is done I am making another starter with the resulting yeast, there is no way I'm hitting my pitching numbers on one round. But the question is should I pitch everything? I already have some yeast settling out, there is a greyish layer and the beginnings of a quite bright white layer. Some part of me says I should pitch the whole thing to keep my numbers as good as possible, pitching the handful of good yeast hiding in the dead, while another part of me is concerned that the inclusion of so much unhealthy yeast will end up creating problems with off flavors from unhealthy yeast, autolysis, etc. Anyway I would like to know what you all think about this.