pitching complete starter vs draining liquid and using just yeast

[FreeLordBrewing]

hey everyone it has been a long time since I brewed a beer, life has gotten in the way of hobbies, but wanted to make a beer to give away as xmas gifts.

making an imperial porter target OG is 1.090

made a starter with 2000ml of wort and 2 wyeast smack packs. (200G extra light DME to final volume of 2000ml with yeast nutrient boiled for 15 min cooled then pitched both smack packs swelled for 3 hours)

wanted to hear opinions on wether to dump complete contents of starter into wort, or to drain wort and use only settled yeast.....using a stir plate for the starter.

if I go the route of just yeast should i kill the stir plate a few hours before pitching??? or just dump the whole erlenmeyer into the wort??

Thanks in advance - Shawn

 

[GilSwillBasementBrews]

I would stop the stirrer the night before brewday and chill the starter overnight then decant and pitch on brewday. Just my opinion. If I wanted my beer fermented at room temp without temp control I would pitch the whole starter but starters generally just ferment fast and furious as we usually are not drinking the beer from the starter and as such usually don't take temp considerations with starters as we are not concerned with off flavors or esters from high ferm. temps.

 

[kh54s10]

I sometime pitch the whole starter when 1L or less. I would not want 2 liters of beer that was fermented in bad conditions introduced to my good beer.

 

[Bensiff]

I'm with Gil. I always crash my starter the night before brew day. Then I take it out of the fridge and decant on brew day and let the yeast sit on the counter to slowly warm so it will be ready to pitch. I don't add hops to my starter and a liter or two of light DME based 1.036 beer would only water down and add character to my beer that I do not desire.

 

[DurtyChemist]

I decant if I'm trying to fill the carboy with 6 or so gallons of beer otherwise I pitch the whole thing I use leftover wort from a previous batch to make starters.

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

a beer that heavy won't matter for flavor but it could fill the fermenter too full, I always pitch the whole starter but smell it first just to make sure, it just makes it easier to pour

 

[winvarin]

Chalk one more up for the "decant" crowd. I usually let my starters ferment out then cold crash them the night before brew day.

On brew day, while I'm heating my mash water, I decant the spent starter wort and add 200 ml or so of fresh starter wort. (I have a pressure canner and always try to keep several various-sized jars of room temp, canned starter wort on hand).

At that point, I usually just put the flask in my fermentation chamber until I am ready to pitch. More often than not, I have a small krausen as the fresh starter wort has caused the yeast to wake up and start eating again. I have no problem pitching that 200 ml of starter with the yeast at the end of brew day. That volume is negligible vs. a full batch of beer.

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

I do the same thing reason, I want my yeast the same temp its fermenting at before I pitch it that way it doesn't stress out

 

[LandoLincoln]

I've always just dumped it all in. My beers taste fine, sometimes excellent, but my friend who insists on decanting believes they could taste better if I didn't "dump that horrible starter beer in with the yeast." It's just non-hopped beer. I don't see what the big deal is.

So I have a question for the decanting crowd:

If Mrmalty.com says 1.6L is needed for a starter batch, they're talking about the FULL volume, right? They're not talking about 1.6L of decanted yeast, right? Because in my mind that would be ridiculous. But I guess I could be wrong.

 

[whiskeyjack]

I'm with the decant crowd but I cringe thinking about making a full 1gal starter for lagers. I thought about making small 1-2 gallon batches and treating it like I would a 5+ gallon batch and then pitching on the cake. Just will take a bit longer and a little more work but you get more beer and don't throw any away

 

[winvarin]

I've always just dumped it all in. My beers taste fine, sometimes excellent, but my friend who insists on decanting believes they could taste better if I didn't "dump that horrible starter beer in with the yeast." It's just non-hopped beer. I don't see what the big deal is.

So I have a question for the decanting crowd:

If Mrmalty.com says 1.6L is needed for a starter batch, they're talking about the FULL volume, right? They're not talking about 1.6L of decanted yeast, right? Because in my mind that would be ridiculous. But I guess I could be wrong.

1.6L would be the total starter volume, yeast and wort/beer. You'd essentially have X billion cells after pitching Y million cells into 1.6L of wort and letting it ferment out. I love Jamil and follow him like a zealot. But sometimes I find the interface on the mrmalty calculator a little clunky.

If you want a more visual representation of what kind of growth you're getting from various starter sizes and pitching rates, take a look at yeastcalculator.com. It allows you to pick what growth rate calculation you're using (so you can still use Jamil's math from mrmalty.com like I do, it's just a drop down option).

But the output is a little easier for me to visualize. I tell it I am making this much of this kind of beer with a starting gravity of this. At the top, it tells me how many cells I need for an optimal pitch rate.

At the bottom, I can tinker with the amount of yeast I start with (and it's expected viability). Then I can try different starter sizes and number of steps to get me into the ballpark for my desired cell count.

 

[FreeLordBrewing]

due to time resitrictions I decided on pitching the complete contents of erlenmeyer versus decanting......I ended up with 4.75+ gallons to hit my target gravity of 1.095 (prior to yeast pitching) I should have posted before brewing ha ha.

with the addition of the yeast/wort it brought it to a level just above 5 gallons (ale pail plastic bucket)....I woke up today to a violent fermentation where the yeast and krausen was JUST entering the air lock.... the timing was impecible, I had to remove it and install a brass nipple (sanitized), hose, and used my 2000ml flask holding sanitizer as an air lock....I have never had a fermentation this aggresive and it has made me so happy!!! I was worried as several times when I had checked on the starter my stir plate had kicked the pill to the side (worked fine while testing it at the same rpm in water). had to stir it manualy a few times and relocate the pill to the center of the flask.....but based on the CO2 coming out of the hose the yeast is super productive and very happy!! I might decant next time but with these results I can't help but smile/grin like an idiot!! thanks for all the prompt replies!!

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4WINhrtAPU[/ame]

 

[joshesmusica]

if you don't have temp control on that thing, with fermentation that vigorous, i would be willing to bet that you are also vigorously out of control on the temp range, which means lots of unwanted fusels.
what kind of yeast are you using?
another thing i would add is that a beer that is strong with a complex malt bill, might need some conditioning time to round out the flavors. and that's without any fusels! if there's too many fusels it probably won't ever round out. i would suggest if you're giving them away as christmas gifts to tell your recipients to store it somewhere cool for another month before they enjoy it.

 

[FreeLordBrewing]

no temp control, in a basement. sitting at 72 degrees, will probally drop a few degrees as fermentation slows.

using wyeast Irish ale 1084 2 smack packs in a starter with stir plate approx 14 hours prior to pitch.

I'll have to look into fusels. Thanks for the tips.

 

[Bowtiebrewery]

Wait just a question on that temp... 72*F is the ambient air temperature or is that the measured temperature on the carboy/bucket? If its the ambient air temp, you are going to be stressing that yeast. I would almost guarantee you will be in the 80's for fermentation temp.

Try and get that temperatuer down to high 60's if you can... With a beer that big, you do not want to have hot alcohol flavors added... What temp did you pitch at?

 

[joshesmusica]

i gotta agree with bowtie. with a beer that big you should probably be pitching your yeast at about 63-64. With the ambient temp that low as well. On the inside of the fermenter it could be up to 8-10 degrees warmer than ambient. You could get a cheap stick-on thermometer that would give you a better reading than what your thermostat says the room temp is. it's probably too late now, but the day after you pitch on a big beer like that feel the fermenter when the ambient is 72. it will probably feel hotter than your forehead when you have a fever. The only reason I'm telling you this is because I know from experience! Last year's christmas beer i didn't read too much about high gravity beers and how they tend to take off fast, and then i was using a strain that's also notorious for taking off fast, that combo had the fermenter temp at probably around 85, and my ambient temp was 69.

 

[FreeLordBrewing]

Using the stick on thermometer it measures 72 on bucket, kept my stirplate in same spot while fermenting my starter, it measured 70, ambient around 68. Cooled wort to 70 when I pitched.

I assume bucket/fermenter will drop to 70 as fermentation slows.

 

[FreeLordBrewing]

based on recipe, reactions, and all other pre-formentioned information on this brew......I'd like to take a poll on wether or not to secondary ferment??

I usually have always racked into a secondary approx. 3 weeks after primary....but I wanted to try just a primary (and only) on this batch.....I have never reached target gravity when using a secondary.

will sitting on the yeast cake in a primary alone help disolve/remove fusels??

I already have advised my Xmas gift recipients that my xmas gift will more than likely be delivered post xmas

 

[joshesmusica]

the fun thing about this, besides drinking the finished product of course, is experimentation and learning. i would just suggest to look up flavor profiles that come from different types of fermentation temps. from what i've read, even from a lot of user experience on here, is that it's often best to ferment below 70 (which with fermenter temp rising a few degrees, that means ambient temps at least around 65), but it does all depend what you're looking for.
yeast can be tough and endure through many situations we put them through, but for best results it's best to treat them like a bitchy 14-year old girl. you want to keep all of the temps the same for the yeast, so they don't get mad and quit (leaving you under-attenuated), or get violent and start producing off-flavors (those fusels i mentioned before).

 

[serum]

I've done both before and didn't really notice any difference in the finished brew.

 

[joshesmusica]

based on recipe, reactions, and all other pre-formentioned information on this brew......I'd like to take a poll on wether or not to secondary ferment??

I usually have always racked into a secondary approx. 3 weeks after primary....but I wanted to try just a primary (and only) on this batch.....I have never reached target gravity when using a secondary.

will sitting on the yeast cake in a primary alone help disolve/remove fusels??

I already have advised my Xmas gift recipients that my xmas gift will more than likely be delivered post xmas

i didn't on my christmas beer. just let it stay on primary for 3 weeks. but mine was "only" 8.1%. So it was a huge beer, just a big one.
From what i've read about secondaries, it doesn't affect flavor to be too noticeable. it just supposedly helps a little with clarity. but my opinion is if you've done all steps right up to that point, the same clarity can be accomplished in the bottle conditioning phase, which you should be doing with a big beer anyways.