I have a yeast starter i'm a bit concerned about. It's the wyeast 1056 strain, and i used it to ferment three batches of beer so far (all pale ales). I saved the yeast by washing it into a 1 gal jug and discarded most of the heavier dregs. I've done this several times, but now, it's been sitting in my garage for almost a month and it's been a bit warm lately. Last night I cooked up 2L of starter wort (200g DME in 2L water), boiled, cooled, added it into my yeast jug and oxygenated. It was slow coming back to life, but it is definitely active now, bubbling regularly, but the activity is not as vigorous as most of my starters are. I expected to see blow-off this morning, but just see slow constant bubbling. There are two distinct layers of yeast sediment at the bottom; darker one on bottom, lighter layer on top of that.
I'm trying to make a blonde ale today which at target O.G. 1.050 shouldn't have too high of a yeast demand, but i'm still a bit concerned because tomorrow or Wednesday I want to use the yeast from that to directly inoculate a barley wine, so i need a healthy culture. I'm torn here. I'm leaning towards just brewing and pitching the starter because if i take time to go grab new 1056 packs, that may push my brew back until tomorrow which means yeast wouldn't be ready for my barley wine. Thoughts?
I'm trying to make a blonde ale today which at target O.G. 1.050 shouldn't have too high of a yeast demand, but i'm still a bit concerned because tomorrow or Wednesday I want to use the yeast from that to directly inoculate a barley wine, so i need a healthy culture. I'm torn here. I'm leaning towards just brewing and pitching the starter because if i take time to go grab new 1056 packs, that may push my brew back until tomorrow which means yeast wouldn't be ready for my barley wine. Thoughts?
