Quick Question on re-pitching w/ a Starter

[Evan!]

As you may know, I had a RIS start at 1.092, which I racked onto the cake of a 1.047-OG bitter (Notty). It had a 1" krausen in an hour, and was blowing off in 2. It blew off quite a bit over the course of the next day, at least an inch of beer from the fermenter. Then it just stopped. The krausen dropped and airlock activity stopped. SG stuck at 1.040, and so the predominant theory at this point from the original thread is that it blew off most of the viable yeast into the blowoff bucket. So this morning, I made a little starter with a quart of water and 4oz of LME, and pitched a new sachet of Notty into it. As of lunchtime, it's got a nice krausen and is roiling away.

My question is, when do you think I should dump the starter into the main fermenter to balance out the highest cell count with the most active period of fermentation? Should I wait until it's slowing down and catch it on the back end? Or should I dump it in when I get home?

 

[bradsul]

It will probably be on the back end by the time you get home, I would pitch it right away. The starter wasn't necessary for the dry yeast anyway so it should be totally ready to pitch.

 

[Evan!]

It will probably be on the back end by the time you get home, I would pitch it right away. The starter wasn't necessary for the dry yeast anyway so it should be totally ready to pitch.

I've never done a starter with a dry yeast before, but this is a special case, since I need for the yeast to be going strong when I put them into that RIS wort. I've never had success trying to re-start a stuck ferment by dumping in dry yeast, even when they're rehydrated, so a starter was, I feel, the right way of going about it.

I'll pitch it when I get home. Thanks!!

 

[bradsul]

Fair enough, I've not had one stick that bad before so I've not had to deal with it. Good luck!