What do people use to put giant yeast starters in?

[anico4704]

I was just playing around with Mr.Malty a bit and noticed for a 1.055 Lager, depending on the yeast viability, you can easily get up to a 4.5 or more liter starter required even with stir plate for a single pack starter. What are people using to put these huge yeast starters in? I know there is the 5000ML flask, but that isn't even going to be big enough for half the starter sizes I am seeing needed for lagers.

 

[Bamsdealer]

Just do it in your brew bucket or carboy, decant and add the chilled wort. Either that or make a galln and a half of extract beer so you're not tossing $4 of extract down the drain! Or do a stepped starter....

 

[freisste]

Stepped starter. Takes longer but is much more efficient use of ingredients.

 

[Brulosopher]

I use a 5 L flask usually, with fresh yeast.

 

[jbhistory]

Stepped starter. Takes longer but is much more efficient use of ingredients.

I would agree with this! Use a 5 L flask and step it up.

http://billybrew.com/stepping-up-a-yeast-starter

I use this video as a reference..... there is a chart you can use imbedded in the video and a nice explanation of how to go about it.

 

[anico4704]

I'm a little confused at the setup up. It is my understanding that if you start with a 2L starter, you can't simply then make another 2L starter as this will not grow the yeast at all as there is no more wort than the first time. The starter actually needs to go from 2L to lets say 3.5L or something like that to achieve growth. Is that not true?

 

[freisste]

I'm a little confused at the setup up. It is my understanding that if you start with a 2L starter, you can't simply then make another 2L starter as this will not grow the yeast at all as there is no more wort than the first time. The starter actually needs to go from 2L to lets say 3.5L or something like that to achieve growth. Is that not true?

That's not true. At least I don't think so. I made a stepped starter that was a little over a liter, crashed and decanted, then pitched the first starter into a second that was also a little over a liter. According to calculators, that got me where I needed to be. If you play with calculators and adjust settings, you find that there are ways to be very efficient. I bet a 1 liter starter crashed, decanted, and put into another 1 liter starter will get you more yeast than a single 3 liter starter, but I would have to check. Granted, that is for pitching a single vial/smack pack. If you already had 500BB cells, the two 1 liters would probably do less than a single 3 liter. Not sure what kind of bath would need 500BB+ cells, but I'm sure a 10 gallon 1.080 lager could get pretty high.

 

[anico4704]

That's not true. At least I don't think so. I made a stepped starter that was a little over a liter, crashed and decanted, then pitched the first starter into a second that was also a little over a liter. According to calculators, that got me where I needed to be. If you play with calculators and adjust settings, you find that there are ways to be very efficient. I bet a 1 liter starter crashed, decanted, and put into another 1 liter starter will get you more yeast than a single 3 liter starter, but I would have to check. Granted, that is for pitching a single vial/smack pack. If you already had 500BB cells, the two 1 liters would probably do less than a single 3 liter. Not sure what kind of bath would need 500BB+ cells, but I'm sure a 10 gallon 1.080 lager could get pretty high.

According to the book Yeast, you are correct. Making the same starter size the second time around does not get you the same growth as the previous starter with 1L of wort because of the saturation of cells to wort the second time around being higher, but it does increase the cell count still. This is the part I was confused on. Thanks!

 

[wilserbrewer]

What do people use to put giant yeast starters in?

A small batch of beer? Going thru the effort, may as well make some product IMO...

 

[chickypad]

A small batch of beer? Going thru the effort, may as well make some product IMO...

Agreed, this is a great option if you can swing it. For stepped starters I've found yeastcalc.com most helpful.

 

[RoundKid]

I recently picked up a 5L starter that I use for 10g lager starters. I also often step up starters with two 2L steps. Before getting my 5L flask, I have used a 2gallon and 5gallon bucket on my DIY stir plate without issue. The largest starter I have done on my stir plate is 9L for use in two 10 gal lager batches.

When calculating step up starters, I like BrewersFriend.com; mostly because it works on iPad/iPhone. I also switched BrewersFriend as my brewing software from Beersmith.

 

[BigFloyd]

I was just playing around with Mr.Malty a bit and noticed for a 1.055 Lager, depending on the yeast viability, you can easily get up to a 4.5 or more liter starter required even with stir plate for a single pack starter.

I'm trying to figure out how you're getting a 4.5+ liter single pack stir plate starter result on a 1.055 lager (400 billion cells) on Mr. Malty. When you run it using less viable yeast, it doesn't kick up the stir starter size so much as it suggests using more packs.

For example, using 2-month old yeast with a production date of 05/13/13, Mr. Malty says 3 packs/vials and a 1.91L stir plate starter.

Of course, you can work around that if you only have one pack by beginning much smaller, getting the cell count up, and then stepping that starter up to around 2L.

 

[chickypad]

I'm trying to figure out how you're getting a 4.5+ liter single pack stir plate starter result on a 1.055 lager (400 billion cells) on Mr. Malty. When you run it using less viable yeast, it doesn't kick up the stir starter size so much as it suggests using more packs.

For example, using 2-month old yeast with a production date of 05/13/13, Mr. Malty says 3 packs/vials and a 1.91L stir plate starter. .

Right, you need fresher yeast to see the single vial numbers. Older than about 6 wks mrmalty won't let you select fewer than 2 vials, I assume because the inoculation rate of the starter would be so low as to give pretty inefficient growth. Yeastcalc lets you select any date/size and shows the corresponding inoculation rate, leaving it to you I guess not to select something too low.

 

[anico4704]

I'm trying to figure out how you're getting a 4.5+ liter single pack stir plate starter result on a 1.055 lager (400 billion cells) on Mr. Malty. When you run it using less viable yeast, it doesn't kick up the stir starter size so much as it suggests using more packs.

For example, using 2-month old yeast with a production date of 05/13/13, Mr. Malty says 3 packs/vials and a 1.91L stir plate starter.

Of course, you can work around that if you only have one pack by beginning much smaller, getting the cell count up, and then stepping that starter up to around 2L.

Yeah I was looking at only using 1 vial, that is how I was getting the large numbers. It sounds like 1 vial with stepping up is the way to go in a 5L flask if only 1 vial is going to be used.

 

[mux]

What do people use to put giant yeast starters in?

A small batch of beer? Going thru the effort, may as well make some product IMO...

I like where your going with that and for those that don't agree- check this out.

http://www.beertools.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3483