tyrub42
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- Oct 13, 2016
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Hi everyone,
Long story short: I undercarbed a sour and want to repitch some active wine yeast along with more sugar.
In a small 1.035 300ml starter of mostly sugar, how long do you expect it'll take 2g of wine yeast (red star) to reach peak activity? I have the option of leaving it overnight, then returning to the house where I'll be doing this (total 15-18 hours), or starting it in the morning and pitching in the afternoon (total 3-5 hours). Which one would you expect to be a better time frame for peak activity?
More details: I tried just sugar on a bottle with no results, then tried sugar and a tiny bit of fermenting sour wort on another bottle and it worked. I want to emulate that and go for my greatest guarantee of success, so I only have to do this once. I figured the best thing to do was to make a vitality starter from wine yeast by using sugar, lots of nutrient, a tiny bit of starter wort, and lactic acid to acidify down to 3.8. I chose this pH as a compromise between a 'normal' wort pH and my sour's pH (3.3), as I wanted to help get the yeast used to an acidic environment but didn't want to shock it too badly, and don't want to go through the extra steps of an acid shock. The big assumption here, which hopefully proves correct, is that 3.8 won't be much of a problem for wine yeast (hope hope). I've never used wine yeast before, as I usually use t58 for all bottling, but I got a few free packets and this seems like a good time to use some. Thanks!
Long story short: I undercarbed a sour and want to repitch some active wine yeast along with more sugar.
In a small 1.035 300ml starter of mostly sugar, how long do you expect it'll take 2g of wine yeast (red star) to reach peak activity? I have the option of leaving it overnight, then returning to the house where I'll be doing this (total 15-18 hours), or starting it in the morning and pitching in the afternoon (total 3-5 hours). Which one would you expect to be a better time frame for peak activity?
More details: I tried just sugar on a bottle with no results, then tried sugar and a tiny bit of fermenting sour wort on another bottle and it worked. I want to emulate that and go for my greatest guarantee of success, so I only have to do this once. I figured the best thing to do was to make a vitality starter from wine yeast by using sugar, lots of nutrient, a tiny bit of starter wort, and lactic acid to acidify down to 3.8. I chose this pH as a compromise between a 'normal' wort pH and my sour's pH (3.3), as I wanted to help get the yeast used to an acidic environment but didn't want to shock it too badly, and don't want to go through the extra steps of an acid shock. The big assumption here, which hopefully proves correct, is that 3.8 won't be much of a problem for wine yeast (hope hope). I've never used wine yeast before, as I usually use t58 for all bottling, but I got a few free packets and this seems like a good time to use some. Thanks!
