Save some starter?

[jbsayers]

Hey gang,

As some you may have read, I made my first starter Fri night. It occurs to me that I should be able to save some of my starter in the vial the yeast originally came in and use it to make another starter the next time I brew (given I want to use the same yeast). Any reason that isn't a completely logical and rational thing to do?

Thanks in advance.

JB

 

[troyh]

It's logical and rational to me as I've done the same thing. Make sure it's not still fermenting and clean and sanitize the vial first, of course. And I put electrical tape around the cap just to be a little more airtight.

 

[wyowolf]

I want to try this, how do you go about saving the starter?? How long will it be viable? It's a wyeast American ale. I am assuming you could keep doing this several times? Or no? It would sure save on yeast costs...

 

[ajf]

The main purpose of making a starter is to increase the cell count to that required for the beer.
It seems counter intuitive to me to make a starter to increase the cell count, and then to reduce the cell count before brewing.
I make the starter, and brew with it. When I'm ready to keg, I harvest the yeast (There's a lot more of it after brewing the batch), and wash it, dividing the washed yeast into 4 mason jars., each of which will make another brew. For the next brew, I make a starter from the washed yeast in one of the mason jars, and again harvest that yeast when the brew is ready to keg. I only go to 3 generations because I once got a mutation after about 4 or 5 generations, and I think getting 21 brews out of 1 vial gives a very good ROI.
The only problem that I can see with doing this is if you make a beer with a S.G. > 1.060, when people who know much more than I do say that the yeast gets unduly stressed and should not be re-used. If I make a higher gravity brew, I just flush the yeast down the drain when it's done it's job. It's supposed to be very good for the septic tank.

-a.

 

[krispy3d]

Check out this thread, which covers a nice way of making a big starter with the intent of saving some for next time.

 

[jsmcclure]

i put about 1 1/2 ounce of glycerine in a 4 oz canning jar then cook it in the pressure cooker for 15 minutes. i usually do 1.5 l starters and use about 9 ounces of that to mix with the glycerine and i freeze the yeast. Works great so far. Havent bought liquid yeast in quite a few months now.

 

[jbsayers]

The main purpose of making a starter is to increase the cell count to that required for the beer.
It seems counter intuitive to me to make a starter to increase the cell count, and then to reduce the cell count before brewing.
I make the starter, and brew with it. When I'm ready to keg, I harvest the yeast (There's a lot more of it after brewing the batch), and wash it, dividing the washed yeast into 4 mason jars., each of which will make another brew. For the next brew, I make a starter from the washed yeast in one of the mason jars, and again harvest that yeast when the brew is ready to keg. I only go to 3 generations because I once got a mutation after about 4 or 5 generations, and I think getting 21 brews out of 1 vial gives a very good ROI.
The only problem that I can see with doing this is if you make a beer with a S.G. > 1.060, when people who know much more than I do say that the yeast gets unduly stressed and should not be re-used. If I make a higher gravity brew, I just flush the yeast down the drain when it's done it's job. It's supposed to be very good for the septic tank.

-a.

The main reason I was thinking of saving some of the starter instead of harvesting after fermentation was because the yeast are earlier gen without having been through the stress of a full batch.

 

[pabloj13]

The main reason I was thinking of saving some of the starter instead of harvesting after fermentation was because the yeast are earlier gen without having been through the stress of a full batch.

Sometimes the later generations are actually better, but if you are making a real hoppy or high gravity beer, you might not have any other choice. That being said, I don't think it's counterintuitive at all. Just make a little more yeast than you need and save a little.

 

[Guerrilla]

Just use a yeast calculator to know how much yeast you get from your starter then decant it into separate containers. I put 150mL into mason jars. Then make sure you take down the #'s and org date of manufacture so you can guess at your yeast viability in the future. I get 8-10 batches off each yeast i buy and i could get more with more generations, but i dont want to get too greedy