Stir Plate Problem

nosnavswerb · Oct 3, 2013

Not sure If anyone can answer this but I have regularly been making starters for all my batches. I decided to invest in a stir plate and the first starter I did on it turned out bad. I used California ale yeast and when I opened it, it seemed very healthy. I did my starter the same I have always done put it on the stir plate and let it do its thing all night. On brew day before I pitched the yeast I noticed that there didn't seem to be much yeast in my flask. Swirled it and most of the time I get a lot of reaction from the yeast but not this time. Pitched it and nothing happened unfortunately I pitched more bad washed yeast I had twice and it finally took off but the brew has a horrible taste and odor. My question is did I miss a step in the starter should I have let the starter take off first then put it on the stir plate. Has anyone else had this problem let me know if this was a one time freak thing or if I did anything wrong.

TomRep · Oct 3, 2013

the yeast in a starter on a stir plate will be thoroughly mixed with the wort. most people throw the flask in the fridge and decant the liquid off the top. as far as shaking it and not getting activity, i assume you mean carbonation? the extra co2 is forced out of the starter by the stirring of the starter, so there will be little to no "foaming" when shaken/swirled.

plinythebadass · Oct 3, 2013

Yea you need to "crash" it before brew day...it'll just put the lil guys down for a nap before they're brought back to room temp for pitching. You'll notice a nice yeast layer after the cold crashing on the bottom of your Ehrlmeyer (or w/e)...decant the dark wort off the top and slurry the yeast one more time (after the room temp wait!!!!) and dump! BAM!

william_shakes_beer · Oct 4, 2013

Most likely the yeast sample you started with was not viable. Any chance you put the yeast in the wort while it was too hot?

duboman · Oct 4, 2013

What was the date of the pack and expected viability? What size starter did you make? How long was it on the plate for initially? How do you know after pitching nothing happened and how long did you give it?

Your initial starter probably had nothing to do with the crappy beer, it was probably the additional yeast you pitched or poor sanitation and it may have gotten infected. Horrible taste and odor? Like what? What temp did you ferment this at? What was the second variety of yeast you pitched?

nosnavswerb · Oct 5, 2013

The date was Dec 5 2013 and I made a 1000ml for a 5 gal batch at an est. O.G. of 1.068. It was on the plate for about 18 hours and I gave the wort 2 days with no activity. I am pretty sure it was the washed yeast I dropped in there because it was about a year old. All the yeast was WLP001 and the funny thing is the last brew I did prior to this one I had the same problem but I did not use a stir plate. I had to dump dry yeast into that batch to get it going. Have used WPL001 a lot and had no problem usually have activity within 4 hours and I usually get really fast strong fermentation with WPL001. The beer smells and tastes like a really strong Belgian, not the best currently at pinpointing defects when it comes to taste and smell. I can detect them but not sure sometimes on what they exactly smell or taste like. I have a fermentation chamber at it is a constant 65 degrees in there. Done probably 12 brews with this yeast in last couple years and never have had a problem and now the last two batches have been duds. Thanks for your help.