BitterSweetBrews
Tim Trabold
I had posted most of this on another threar where they asked if you decanted or pitched whole starters. I decant if I have time.
I tried something different and wanted some feedback.
I brewed Friday. I started a 1 1/2 quart starter with some harvested Pacman yeast Wednesday night. The starter was made with some wort I canned from the second runnings from a darker batch. It was still pretty dark.
I am saying this because the batch I brewed Friday was 5 gallons of a light amber ale. I didn't want any other flavors or to change the color so I decided to crash and decant the starter.
I did it a little differently then I have done before because of some stuff I read on Brulosophy (I think) about yeast washing and crashing the washed yeast. They found that there was still a boatload of yeast in the decanted washing liquid, possibly as much or more as what had settled in a day. It seemed a shame to waste it.
I cold crashed the starter on Friday night, after my brew day was done at about 7:00 p.m.. On Saturday, at about 11:00 a.m., I decanted out the starter beer, which was pretty clear and left about a 1 1/2 cups of cloudy liquid and yeast. What I did differently, was instead of pouring it down the drain, I put it into a couple 1 liter cleaned and sanitized pop bottles to harvest from later. I want to see how much yeast I am typically throwing away.
In addition to that, I didn't pitch right away. I warmed the starter up to room temperature then took about a liter of wort from the amber batch and added it into the yeast in the flask. I put it back on the stirplate and let it go for about 8 hours. In that time it had a good kreusan ring going and was really milky. I pitched it Saturday night. About 10 hours later, Sunday morning, it was bubbling away in the airlock and I needed to change to a blow off tube.
After a day the liter pop bottles have a small layer of settled yeast, maybe about a teaspoon or two between them. I'll probably leave them for a couple weeks, decant the liquid, combine them and freeze it.
I tried something different and wanted some feedback.
I brewed Friday. I started a 1 1/2 quart starter with some harvested Pacman yeast Wednesday night. The starter was made with some wort I canned from the second runnings from a darker batch. It was still pretty dark.
I am saying this because the batch I brewed Friday was 5 gallons of a light amber ale. I didn't want any other flavors or to change the color so I decided to crash and decant the starter.
I did it a little differently then I have done before because of some stuff I read on Brulosophy (I think) about yeast washing and crashing the washed yeast. They found that there was still a boatload of yeast in the decanted washing liquid, possibly as much or more as what had settled in a day. It seemed a shame to waste it.
I cold crashed the starter on Friday night, after my brew day was done at about 7:00 p.m.. On Saturday, at about 11:00 a.m., I decanted out the starter beer, which was pretty clear and left about a 1 1/2 cups of cloudy liquid and yeast. What I did differently, was instead of pouring it down the drain, I put it into a couple 1 liter cleaned and sanitized pop bottles to harvest from later. I want to see how much yeast I am typically throwing away.
In addition to that, I didn't pitch right away. I warmed the starter up to room temperature then took about a liter of wort from the amber batch and added it into the yeast in the flask. I put it back on the stirplate and let it go for about 8 hours. In that time it had a good kreusan ring going and was really milky. I pitched it Saturday night. About 10 hours later, Sunday morning, it was bubbling away in the airlock and I needed to change to a blow off tube.
After a day the liter pop bottles have a small layer of settled yeast, maybe about a teaspoon or two between them. I'll probably leave them for a couple weeks, decant the liquid, combine them and freeze it.
