Three Days for Lager Starter

[ChrisS68]

Brewing a lager. Unfortunately, due to my schedue it HAS to be brewed this weekend, which gives me three days to make a starter.

I figure I have two ways to play this:
1. Ferment the starter at appropriate temps (50-55 degrees) and pitch the whole shebang on Sunday, or
2. Ferment warmer (65-70 degrees) for two days, then crash for one day before decanting and pitching.

Obviously, the timeline is not optimal, but nothing like a tight deadline to keep things interesting. I was planning on going with option one, but my concern there is if the cell count would be up and active enough in three days.
What do y'all think?
Thanks!

Chris

 

[LKABrewer]

Option# 2. 70-72*, plenty of O2, then crash and decant.

 

[sjbeerman]

Option 2

 

[osagedr]

Make sure you pitch enough yeast. Big starter at whatever temp you need to get the job done in the time you have, then crash, decant, pitch.

 

[ChrisS68]

Ok, option #2 it is! Thanks folks!
Gonna use 2 vials in 3 quarts of wort. Should put me in the neighborhood

 

[solavirtus]

Good choice, I think. In my experience, there's no ill effect of growing a lager starter at higher temps as long as you decant. The yeast grow faster and seem just as healthy!

 

[onthekeg]

Another option I have done successfully in the past is to only put one gallon of wort in the fermenter after your brew day and store the other wort in a sanitized keg or another fermenter. Let the yeast start chowing away and at high krausen, dump in the rest of the wort. No extra starter needed other than that.

 

[tesilential]

Another option I have done successfully in the past is to only put one gallon of wort in the fermenter after your brew day and store the other wort in a sanitized keg or another fermenter. Let the yeast start chowing away and at high krausen, dump in the rest of the wort. No extra starter needed other than that.

This is what I did for my first lager.
Made my wort and used 3/4 gal + 1/4 gal water (to lower gravity).fermented it for 24 hours at ~55* then tossed it all in with the rest and fermented at 49.

 

[ChrisS68]

Bit of an update:
As of this evening I'll be at the two day mark. Up until this morning I had yet to see any signs of activity. I was figuring that maybe that was simply the way it was, and that the yeast were doing their thing. Thought I'd probably go ahead and start the crash as scheduled. Well... upon close inspection this morning I finally spotted a few bubbles on top of the wort, and what looked like tiny "blips" all over the surface. A few more hours on, it is now obvious that activity is picking up. On one hand I'm glad that the starter is finally taking off, and that I didn't crash prematurely. On the other hand, this is obviously going to throw off my schedule a bit. I do have a little time for a contingency plan (pitching the day after brewing) so we'll have to see how it goes.