Starter question

[dpinette2]

Making starter for tmrw, started it at 1pm. A38, Juice from Imperial.

Starter is 1.6l, 160g of dme

Put on stirplate as usual. After two hrs it blew foam stopper completely out. Took of stirplate and it continues to blow it out.

What should I do?

I put in fridge to settle it down a bit. Plan is to keep in over night, take out tmrw and let it warm up, maybe put on stir plate?

Any advice is appreciated.

 

[day_trippr]

"Got Fermcap?"

 

[mongoose33]

Are you saying krausen is overflowing the flask? That's hard to believe after only 2 hours.

If it's just the foam plug coming out, put foil loosely over the mouth of the flask.

 

[day_trippr]

I dunno, a fresh can of Imperial packs a lot of cells. Pitched into warm-ish starter with not-a-lot-of-headroom I could see things getting out of hand without a drop or two of Fermcap...

Cheers!

 

[mongoose33]

I dunno, a fresh can of Imperial packs a lot of cells. Pitched into warm-ish starter with not-a-lot-of-headroom I could see things getting out of hand without a drop or two of Fermcap...

Cheers!

Yeah, may depend on the size of the flask.

 

[dpinette2]

no fermcap...guess i have to get that going forward!

Yes, foam is blowing it right out

 

[SEndorf]

What size Erlenmeyer flask ?

 

[WBB]

Mine blowout all the time in a 2L erlenmeyer. I have a bucket of starsan nearby. I usually soak paper towels and clean up. Reset the aluminum foil cover and also drape star San soaked paper towels over the aluminum foil top.

Sometimes I take the top off and swirl by hand. Yeah it will volcano, but just clean up with star San soaked paper towels and reset. Never had a problem.

 

[dpinette2]

2l

 

[SEndorf]

Upgrading to a 5L will eliminate the mess.

 

[day_trippr]

^yup^
I have to essentially triple any store bought yeast volume to get to my typical gravity 10 gallon batch and have enough left over to ranch.
That's a lot easier to do in a 5 liter e-flask - though I still use 3 drops of Fermcap just on gp's...

Cheers!

 

[Hermit]

I no longer use a flask for starters. I use a bucket to ferment and do the starter in that. Plenty of air plus I use a stir plate. I do it in my fridge/fermentation chamber. When done I cold crash and tilt the bucket back so the yeast collects to the back and make decanting easier.

Actually I built it to stir my fermenter so why not use that to also aerate my wort and keep the yeast in suspension. I leave the lid loose until the krausen drops or looks like it is ready to drop. I did a high gravity Scotch Ale this way and I got a tad better attenuation than the yeast specs called for. No other aeration techniques. I've only done a few this way so far but it appears to work well so far.