Starter or dirct pitch?

[MacGruber]

Would you still make a starter if using one of these washed mason jars from last week or just decant/ pitch directly? I'll be brewing next Saturday which means the yeast will have been in the jars for 12 days.

 

[StinkyVp]

I plan on doing my first direct pitch from a couple of jars that is probably equal to one of yours. I am letting them warm up now and will put in warm water closer to pitch time. My beer should be around 1.031 OG. I don't have anything to even make a starter. I'm a little nervous but I think it will be fine. I look at like making a 5 gal starter.
I say go for it. What will your OG be?

 

[MacGruber]

My OG is going to be low to average- it's a Hefeweizen- 1.052 is the projected OG.

 

[djfriesen]

Check the pitch from slurry numbers here. You should be able to approximate your yeast concentration, and then you'll know what volume you need for a given amount of beer and OG. From a quick run of the numbers, I'd want about 125 ml if you mix them back up, or ~70 ml if you pour off the excess and pitch only the yeast cake.

 

[Calder]

Ignore Mr. Malty numbers. I think its viability numbers are highly suspect. If you use it, tell it the yeast was harvested yesterday; that way you will get a better number.

Assuming you are confident about your sanitation, you can direct pitch to your new beer. That does look like a lot of yeast, I would recommend only pitching a quarter to a third of the harvested yeast. You need to allow the yeast to reproduce to get new healthy yeast to work on your beer, if you over-pitch, there will be less new yeast, and more older stressed yeast.

 

[iijakii]

That's a lot of yeast in there. I wouldn't feel worried about it at all.

 

[pabloj13]

that's a lot of yeast in there. I wouldn't feel worried about it at all.

+1

 

[MacGruber]

That's my gut inclination too. I'll probably pull some of the yeast and just pitch.

 

[StinkyVp]

So be careful. These guys are right. One of those is probably enough or too much. I combined the two smallest jars I had in this picture and this morning my bucket airlock was overflowing and the lid was about to blow off. I cleaned everything back up and it's bubbling away. I'll continue to monitor today.
My yeast was 3 weeks old. I think with a little tweaking this process is going to work great.

 

[StinkyVp]

Okay wow. After cleaning for the 4th time I'm wishing I had a blow off tube. Hopefully I can make it through the night.
*note to self: Don't pitch that much yeast anymore.

 

[djfriesen]

Or rig a blowoff?

 

[MacGruber]

I'll probably direct pitch one of these mason jars with a blow off tube attached. I need to read the Hefeweizen thread again to make sure I get the profile I'm after.

 

[kh54s10]

I don't think blow off is directly correlated with over pitching. I have made smallish starters for similar recipes using the same yeast and one would blow and the other wouldn't even get close.

I would trust the slurry amounts calculated by mrmalty.com.

I have used it since my third brew and have never had a problem.

 

[Clann]

Pitch it! That looks like plenty of yeast!

 

[StinkyVp]

If I look at Mr Malty I pitched at least 4 times what I should have. Oh well.
I made it through the night btw. I stuck my bottling hose over the tube to make a blow off and its still bubbling constantly. I'm glad it didn't clog.

 

[g-star]

I'll probably direct pitch one of these mason jars with a blow off tube attached. I need to read the Hefeweizen thread again to make sure I get the profile I'm after.

Its important to pitch the correct amount of yeast for a Hefeweizen. If you over-pitch with too much slurry (semmingly a real possibility here), you will get little to none of the signature hefe banana/clove esters.

 

[BigRob]

Was under the impression from the Wyeast interview that overpitching tended to produce a lot more clove, proper pitch rates bring the balance, and underpitching mostly banana.

 

[tennesseean_87]

another thing to take into account is how well you washed the yeast. The OP looks like it might have some trub in it, but I'm not sure. The second photo looks more like pure yeast.

 

[MacGruber]

I do seem to have some in there. I'd ideally like to make a starter, but the consensus seems to be pitch the whole thing. This was my first attempt at washing yeast. How much should I pitch into a starter if I chose to do that?

 

[pabloj13]

I do seem to have some in there. I'd ideally like to make a starter, but the consensus seems to be pitch the whole thing. This was my first attempt at washing yeast. How much should I pitch into a starter if I chose to do that?

Figure out how many billion cells you need and how many you have with Mr. Malty and then figure out the starter size you need with yeastcalc.com

It's going to be a long time before you need a starter with those large jars, assuming you are making average gravity beers.

 

[MacGruber]

It looks like I need 98 ml of yeast to repitch, which is what I have in each jar. I just ordered a stir plate and flask...I guess it'll wait for my lager in a few weeks.