Time Lapse video of Yeast starter

[mrussell345]

My first post, hope you guys enjoy... I know it's just a yeast starter so not super interesting but always wondered what it was up to overnight. It's from 10:00pm to 7:30am at about 65deg.



Wyeast 1056 American Ale, with Wyeast Brewer's Choice Nutrient in a 2000ml flask on a Northern Brewer stir plate.

 

[MalFet]

Cool first post! Welcome to HBT.

 

[sjbeerman]

So that's what happens when I'm sleeping.

 

[Revvy]

Cool video. I was hoping that the krausen was going to be come and gone in that time frame. We get a lot of new brewers on here who panic because they don't see what you show in the video. They start off with a dormant looking flask, and the next morning they get a dormant looking flask with sediment in the bottom and don't realize that with some yeast starters the krausens some come and go quite rapidly. I've only had maybe 4-5 krausens in 50 starters or so. And only had 2 or 3 of them that were at high krausen at pitch time.

Welcome

 

[mrussell345]

Next one I'll let go longer, was excited

 

[buckeyebrewer]

You win the award for best first post...nice work.

 

[Gitana]

That is so cool. I'm just on my first batch and decided to use a carboy instead of a bucket so that I could see what's going on.

Thanks for the post.

 

[eastoak]

Very cool, I'm going to do this with my next batch of hefeweizen just to see the whole fermentation happen.

 

[weirdboy]

Cool video!

Next time, don't use an airlock on your starter. It keeps new oxygen from getting into the flask. Instead, use a foam stopper, or just cover it with aluminum foil.

 

[mrussell345]

I used the foam last time, the guy at my local hbs told me to use the airlock... Not sure

 

[Revvy]

The last few years we've been using tinfoil or even foam stoppers like weirdboy said. It seems to help feed the little buggers with more O2 than using an airlock which is designed to keep oxygen from getting in.

I've been doing it for the last year to year and a half and I will say that I've noticed that I seem to get more starters actually ready to pitch at high krausen, rather than not even seeing krausen at all. Also I've had a couple vigorous starter fermentations that have required even adding fermcap-s. One of them even blew the tinfoil cover off in a snake of krausen climbing out the top.

I've made starters for years using an airlock and never had as vigorous appearing starter fermentations.

Yeah next time do a whole video all the way through krausen fall and settling yeast. I'm usually referring folks to good videos a lot in my answers. I'll definitely use it. I'm already probably going to link folks to this video when I get questions about starter fermentation.

 

[mrussell345]

Will do. I did use foam the time before last and the krausen pushed the stopper right off, would have loved to have gotten that on film

 

[crlova2]

I agree that an airlock shouldn't be used. If you use one there is no point of the stir plate. The whole point of it is gas exchange (pushing out CO2 and introducing new O2). A starter is to propagate and make healthy yeast which requires O2 that you wouldn't be getting with an airlock on. Cool video though.