Pitching yeast. Techniques?

[RedBeardedBrewer]

Something that I often overlook on brew day is pitching my yeast starter. Not that i forget to do it, obviously, but I tend not to pay much attention to the details here.

First, I usually dont check the temperature of my starter. The yeast book recommends pitching when the temp of the wort and the starter are within a couple degrees of each other. Gordon strong says they should be within 5-10 degrees. Two way different recommendations. I probably am doing more of the Gordon strong approach. What are everyone's experiences here? Does it matter?

Another thing that I have been curious about is cooling the wort down past fermentation temperatures (cool to 60 and let it rise to 65). Does anyone feel this is a good technique? If so, how do you get the extra drop in temp since an immersion chiller or plate chiller can usually only get the wort down to 70ish?

The last thing I wanted to ask about is wether or not it is worth it to decant off the extra liquid in a yeast starter? You have to cold crash it which would mean starting the starter even further in advance. Planning isn't my strong point so I usually don't do this.

Feel free to add other things to the discussion. But please, no debates about rehydrating dry yeast... That ship has sailed.

 

[Onkel_Udo]

I try to make sure my ales are at their optimum ferm temp before pitching...but I am often too impatient to wait the last 5 degrees. I use an immersion chiller to get to 80'ish, then drop the fermenters in my two bay laundry sink with some ice water. I admit, I almost never check the temp right before pitching because I know from experience that I will drop about 10-15 degrees while I clean up the rest of the brewing mess so I pitch when I am done.

My starters are at whatever temp my basement is at when I pitch but I always have vigorous fermentation in a few hours. I leave the fermenters in the ice bath for the first night and might an a couple of pounds the next day if I am using a seriously exothermic yeast (S-04!). When I did check the temps, the fermenting mass would be at about 65 degrees the next morning with the ice all melted but the water still about 55 degrees.

I never bother decanting the liquid off because I am pretty lazy and besides it is just an 1.006 or so SG unhopped beer. Half the time I pitch from my growler that I use as my starter bottle and immediately refill the growler with more 1.040 wort to start the next starter.

 

[Hammy71]

My starters are fermented in the "man room" down stairs which is usually around 70 degrees, so no problem there. I don't worry if it is within 2 degrees of the wort. 70 is close enough.

I really don't see an advantage to over chilling the wort. However, if you wanted to do so or make a lager you can by using a prechiller. This can be another copper IC in a bucket of ice that is placed before your IC in the kettle. It sorta super chills your tap water. Some, like myself, will chill the wort using my IC and tap water til I get into the low 70s. Then I'll hook up an old pond pump I have to my IC. Set the pump in a bucket of ice water and recirculate the water through the IC. Works great.

I would recommend you decant most of the liquid from your starters. It's not only unhopped beer....but it's oxygenated skunky beer. Sometimes, for larger beers or old yeast vials, you may have to make a huge starter. If you just throw it in, it can be a large percentage of your beer total. It's not to hard to do and only takes a few seconds. You can either decant warm or better yet, put the starter in the fridge the night before you brew. The yeast will make a nice compact layer on the bottom and it will be easy to pour off the unwanted beer. Then let it warm up to room temps while your making the brew.

 

[Denny]

I take the starter out of the fridge, decant, and pitch immediately. I've done that for hundreds of batches with great results. As long as the yeast is colder than the wort, no problem. If you warm it up before pitching, the yeast starts to consume it's nutrients, and I'd rather have that happen in the wort than the starter. I tried decanting and not decanting and I far prefer the results from decanting. I make 2-3 qt. starters.

I typically chill ales to around 60 and lagers to around 45-50 before pitching. Sometimes if I'm not paying attention ales can get down into the 50s before I notice, but that's never been a problem.

 

[AnOldUR]

Been following Denny's advise on cold pitching for a while with good results. To make it easier to pour the yeast into the fermenter, I'll take it from the fridge and decant as soon as I start run off from the kettle. Then I'll replace the starter wort with fresh wort coming directly from the kettle. Stir that up real well. When run off and aeration is complete it pours into the fermenter without leaving clumps of yeast behind.

 

[kh54s10]

I've done all of the above with no obvious differences. Pitched a little too warm then cooled before fermentation started. Pitched cool and warmed it up. Decanted and not decanted. I always try to decant anything more than 1 liter.

I feel that if there is not too drastic a difference there won't be any problems. Say 50 degrees + difference.

 

[RedBeardedBrewer]

I take the starter out of the fridge, decant, and pitch immediately. I've done that for hundreds of batches with great results. As long as the yeast is colder than the wort, no problem. If you warm it up before pitching, the yeast starts to consume it's nutrients, and I'd rather have that happen in the wort than the starter. I tried decanting and not decanting and I far prefer the results from decanting. I make 2-3 qt. starters.

I typically chill ales to around 60 and lagers to around 45-50 before pitching. Sometimes if I'm not paying attention ales can get down into the 50s before I notice, but that's never been a problem.

Its a great point that the yeast would "wake up" in the wort when you cold pitch and they wouldn't be using nutrients that they need for fermentation. It is interesting though, that there is such a wide variety of opinions from very reputable people. Denny is essentially saying here that a temperature differential of 20 degrees plus would be ok. Gordon Strong saying 5-10 and Jamil saying 1-2 degrees is ideal. I guess what I should take away from this is that it doesn't matter. It makes sense to decant the starter, and I can see why Denny's method would simplify the whole process. I will give this a shot. Thanks!

 

[Denny]

Whenever I run into a disparity of opinions like that, I try whatever seems to make sense and see if it works for me. It's great to hear what other people think, but it's your own experience that matters.

 

[zachattack]

I would recommend you decant most of the liquid from your starters. It's not only unhopped beer....but it's oxygenated skunky beer.

Well, you can't have beer that is both unhopped and skunked. So it's not skunked. But I do agree that the starter beer is horribly oxidized. I generally taste some of the starter for educational purposes. It always tastes gross and flat from the oxidation, and I'd rather not have that in my beer if I can avoid it.

 

[kombat]

I crash/decant my yeast starters. On brewing day, the first thing I do is take my yeast jar/flask out of the fridge and set it on the counter to let it start to warm up to room temperatures. I then brew the beer (5-ish hours). I then decant the liquid from the yeast starter and pitch the yeast. At this point, the yeast and wort are roughly the same temperature (65 degrees).

For lagers, I leave the yeast in the fridge until I start boiling. That way it's still a little cool when I pitch it later, both because it's a larger thermal mass (4L of liquid and yeast) and it's not sitting out at room temperature for as long. I also chill my wort down to the low 50's before pitching (plate chiller circulating ice water with a pump). But I definitely decant, since 4L of bad-tasting starter wort will be quite noticeable in 19L of beer, not to mention filling my fermenter to capacity, leaving no head space for krausen.

 

[Hammy71]

Well, you can't have beer that is both unhopped and skunked. So it's not skunked. But I do agree that the starter beer is horribly oxidized. I generally taste some of the starter for educational purposes. It always tastes gross and flat from the oxidation, and I'd rather not have that in my beer if I can avoid it.

True, I guess I was using 'skunky' more as an adjective, than a verb....or is that the other way around?