Why not go bigger?

[BigdogMark]

I've been propagating yeast for myself and my brew buds, primarily WLP-001 California Ale and WLP-530 Abbey Ale. I started with 1 liter starters, going through the step-up process to get multiple jars containing our typical requirement of 200 billion cells. This typically works out to about 75ml of compacted yeast cells in my pint jars. I use a stir plate, pure oxygen blast at the start, and loose foil cover over the flask. Recently I have experimented with going directly to larger starter sizes, up to 4 liters with no measurable decrease in the resulting volume of yeast compared to the predicted yeast growth. And, it made great beer!

I've been using the YeastCalc.com calculator with the K.Troester stir plate option. It predicts a 4 liter starter (1.037 specific gravity) will yield 660 billion cells.

So why the recommendation to do stepped starters and all those additional steps? What am I missing?

 

[nukebrewer]

I've been propagating yeast for myself and my brew buds, primarily WLP-001 California Ale and WLP-530 Abbey Ale. I started with 1 liter starters, going through the step-up process to get multiple jars containing our typical requirement of 200 billion cells. This typically works out to about 75ml of compacted yeast cells in my pint jars. I use a stir plate, pure oxygen blast at the start, and loose foil cover over the flask. Recently I have experimented with going directly to larger starter sizes, up to 4 liters with no measurable decrease in the resulting volume of yeast compared to the predicted yeast growth. And, it made great beer!

I've been using the YeastCalc.com calculator with the K.Troester stir plate option. It predicts a 4 liter starter (1.037 specific gravity) will yield 660 billion cells.

So why the recommendation to do stepped starters and all those additional steps? What am I missing?

Mostly it has to do with capacity. I haven't heard of any recommendation to do stepped starters, but if you only have a 2 L flask and you need to a 4 L starter, then a stepped starter is in order. If you can do a 4 L starter then there's really no reason not to.

 

[wyoast]

I had this same question awhile back and the overwhelming response was the possibility of infection since the growth rate of wild yeast and other micro organisms is a lot faster than the "good" yeast.. and the "good" yeast possibly wouldn't have the cell count to overpower the bad stuff... I personally have done it with great success but as a rule, I poor a little off the top of each jar before pitching and taste it...

 

[BigdogMark]

I had this same question awhile back and the overwhelming response was the possibility of infection since the growth rate of wild yeast and other micro organisms is a lot faster than the "good" yeast.. and the "good" yeast possibly wouldn't have the cell count to overpower the bad stuff... I personally have done it with great success but as a rule, I poor a little off the top of each jar before pitching and taste it...

So the implied concern is with such a large growth rate, there is a higher probability the starter will become infected? I will have to consider that with my sanitation procedures.

 

[wyoast]

That's what I got out of it... like I said though, I do it..just make sure your as careful and sanitary as possible and take a little sniff and taste before pitching..

 

[phenry]

I had this same question awhile back and the overwhelming response was the possibility of infection since the growth rate of wild yeast and other micro organisms is a lot faster than the "good" yeast.. and the "good" yeast possibly wouldn't have the cell count to overpower the bad stuff... I personally have done it with great success but as a rule, I poor a little off the top of each jar before pitching and taste it...

I feel like with any amount of sanitation this really isn't much of an issue, especially considering I've pitched a single packet into a 5 gallon "starter" (1.038 Belgian singel) with no adverse effects.

Step starters could be considered "dangerous" given that you have to pour slurries between vessels, need to take more time to propagate cells, etc.

Just sanitize your junk and either way will work fine.

 

[Grannyknot]

I always thought it was because the "steps" were more efficient at producing cells than one large starter.