Starter ERUPTION

[Jrome]

Hey guys,

So, had a starter going for about about 36 hours of some Wyeast 1318 London Ale III for Southern English Brown I'm brewing. I don't have a stir plate, but i use the "shake it when you see it" method. That being said, I woke up this morning to se a nice 3/4" band of yeast on bottom, Awesome! So I decided to give it another shake.

This thing absolutely ERUPTED all over the place. I usually get some CO2 bubbles as shaking it degasses it a bit, but never anything like this.

So the question: I lost about 200ml of starter, went from 1200 to 1000, and probably a good amount of yeast. Will I be fine? Any advice?

 

[Double_D]

you should be fine, there is a surprising amount of yeast suspended in the liquid. Are you pitching into ten gallons or five? Was it one pack or two of yeast?

 

[Jrome]

Its for a five gallon batch and I pitched one smack pack.

What do you mean there is a surprising amount of yeast in the liquid? Isn't that mostly what I lost then?

Thanks for the quick response!

 

[MTBfreak03]

I made my first starter a week or so ago and had a similar problem. I went to work and the starter erupted everywhere. I came back and freaked out a little bit. I read a few different forms and the overwhelming response was 'its ok just pitch it anyways'. I think if I was making a big beer I might decant and put some more wort in there to let it replicate a bit more. But from what I understand, you should be fine theres still plenty of cells left in there.


Not to hi-jack the thread or anything.. but I was literally just about to post asking how people deal with this issue? I have a 2000ml pyrex flask and I am making a starter tonight but I am worried I am going to have overflow again. Is there a solution for this??

 

[Jrome]

That's what I figured, I just feel like a doofus for messing up what was my best looking starter...

As for your concern MTBfreak03, I'm not sure. I generally don't get any krausen on my starters, so its never been an issue.

 

[Double_D]

What I mean is there is more yeast in there than you can see.. you're fine I always make mine in a quart mason jar with two packs (I do ten gallon batches) of yeast and 250 grams of DME. I boil about a pint of liquid with the DME for a couple minutes to disolve the sugar then put a couple cups of ice in to cool it to the 70 degree range and then pour the yeast into the mason jar with enough of the "wort"to come almost to the top(if there is any left just dump it out). I pour that(yeast and wort) back and forth between the pot (which is now cool because of the ice) and the mason jar to aerate then leave it overnight, usually about about 18 hours. But shaking it like you said does make it degas violently so I solved that problem by not shaking the starter until I'm ready to pitch into my chilled wort. I usually put a bag over the starter to keep out dust and put that in a 9x13 baking dish to catch stuff just in case but I haven't had it go off when I wasn't there.