WLP007 Starter Looks Different from Previous Starters

[ultravista]

When I first made a starter with WLP007, it was very much clotted and looked like egg drop soup. For those of you that know WLP007, you know what I'm referring to. A gloppy gelatinous mass of yeast.

Today I am using washed WLP007 from a previous brew, an Arrogant Bastard clone.

The yeast is about 6 months old at this point, kept around 40 (f) in the keezer.

I made a 1.8L starter (on a plate) Thursday evening around 6PM, today at 8AM Saturday, it does not appear to be doing much of anything.

There's a lot of "cake" settled at the bottom of the flask and little teeny tiny bubbles escaping the cake every so often. The cake is probably the yeast that I pitched. Before pitching, I tasted the yeast and it wasn't funky; no off flavors or odors. It passed the "does it taste or smell bad" test.

The difference however is the cake is not WLP007 like, not congealed or "egg drop" like. It looks just like any other yeast I have used before (e.g. Pacman), powdery and light.

After a resting period, turning the stir plate back on, the yeast is powdery when mixing back into the mass. Very different from how it was the first time making the starter.

Any ideas as to what might have happened? Regardless of generation, it should act the same way, right?

Has anyone else seen this with WLP007?

 

[jammin]

Hard saying what you collected when you washed the yeast. If you decanted off or left behind the more flocculent cells, then that might be a contributing factor.

Next time, consider making an extra half liter or so on your first starter. You can then save that as if it were washed yeast. In this fashion, you get a perfectly clean yeast with the (more or less) original generation cells.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/entries/yeast-harvesting-novel-approach.html

cheers

 

[ultravista]

I used bottled water to swirl it around and dropped the results into larger jars.

Would you use it or buy new yeast?

The starter is milky and does not look like it did prior to pitching the yeast.

After 20 minutes or so of power-off, the cake forms at the bottom and off-gassing begins again.

I was expecting a bubbling churning mass like it would be in a carboy. Plus, it doesn't congeal like it did before.

 

[ultravista]

Since posting nearly two hours ago, the activity has picked up quite a lot. The stir plate is off and the fermentation is much more agressive.

I would estimate it about 36 hours or so from initial pitch.

I find it odd that it isn't acting like WLP007 should.

 

[pabloj13]

Since posting nearly two hours ago, the activity has picked up quite a lot. The stir plate is off and the fermentation is much more agressive.

I would estimate it about 36 hours or so from initial pitch.

I find it odd that it isn't acting like WLP007 should.

Give it time. Your viability would be really low at 6 months. It's going to take a while to grow them up. Like a previous poster said, with yeast that old it's good to do a step starter.

 

[ultravista]

While I didn't measure the gravity of the starter, I used 150G of DME for 1500ML, with the DME, the volume was at 1800ML.

My intention was to brew today but I'll postpone until tomorrow.

 

[pabloj13]

While I didn't measure the gravity of the starter, I used 150G of DME for 1500ML, with the DME, the volume was at 1800ML.

My intention was to brew today but I'll postpone until tomorrow.

How many mL of slurry did you start with?

 

[ultravista]

It's hard to tell, the slurry was in large baby food jar, maybe three ounces. I know it's yeast and trub from the last batch, not 100% yeast.

 

[pabloj13]

It's hard to tell, the slurry was in large baby food jar, maybe three ounces. I know it's yeast and trub from the last batch, not 100% yeast.

Yeah, so figure you had 200 billion cells at the start maybe, 10% viability gets you down to 20 billion cells. A 1.8L starter with stir plate gets you back up to 125 billion, still a significant underpitch for an Arrogant Bastard clone. Another 1-1.5L step should get you up there.

 

[ultravista]

Should this WLP007 clump-up and coagulate like it did originally?

I had another small jar, about an ounce of yeast from the same batch, the I dumped into the flask.

 

[pabloj13]

Should this WLP007 clump-up and coagulate like it did originally?

I had another small jar, about an ounce of yeast from the same batch, the I dumped into the flask.

It should. My guess is that it hasn't started floccing yet because they're still waking up.

 

[ultravista]

So then the coagulation occurs through floctuation? If yes, I wonder why the yeast is so powdery right now.

I can't remember what it looked like for the first starter (virgin vial) while it was building and before floccing. I do remember it was a solid mass in the end of the vial. My yeast was compacted too, pretty thick.

It broke apart with the stir bar though.

 

[pabloj13]

So then the coagulation occurs through floctuation? If yes, I wonder why the yeast is so powdery right now.

I can't remember what it looked like for the first starter (virgin vial) while it was building and before floccing. I do remember it was a solid mass in the end of the vial. My yeast was compacted too, pretty thick.

It broke apart with the stir bar though.

Yeah, highly flocculant yeast will clump like that. Your original starter was pitched at a 5+-fold higher inoculation rate so it consumer resources much more quickly and flocced out. This one SHOULD flocc out too eventually. If it doesn't, you might consider just getting some new yeast. The washed yeast should behave like the original.

 

[ultravista]

It is now much more active than earlier this morning. I think a combination of time and the extra shot of yeast helped.

 

[ultravista]

Good news, the yeasties are flocking crazy!

 

[pabloj13]

Good news, the yeasties are flocking crazy!

 

[ultravista]

I saved a bit of this starter for another brew sometime down the road. I'll probably wash some of it too post-ferment.

I brewed an Arrogant Bastard clone today (90% 2-row / 10% special b) and pitched the yeast after cold crashing it.

 

[pabloj13]

I saved a bit of this starter for another brew sometime down the road. I'll probably wash some of it too post-ferment.

I brewed an Arrogant Bastard clone today (90% 2-row / 10% special b) and pitched the yeast after cold crashing it.

Let us know how it goes!

 

[ultravista]

I pitched last night at 5:30 PM, by 03:00 it had a thick head of foam and very active. It may have started earlier though.

 

[pabloj13]

Fantastic. Pitching the right amount of yeast FTW.

 

[AnonyBrew]

I just used a fresh vial of WLP007 and noticetd this same difference. It's been awhile since I've used this yeast, but I know I've used it maybe about 10 times in the past and always remembered the starters having a clumpy egg drop soup look to them.

The starter I'm doing this week is exactly like the OP's with small bubbles and no clumps; much like a wine yeast.

I think there's something that has changed with WLP007 from before.

 

[dyqik]

I did a WLP007 starter last week with a fresh vial. It behaved just like WLP002 - gave very fine egg-drop soup for a couple of days of fermentation, but partially settled out into a hard layer in the couple of hours it took me to sterilize a mason jar to hold the spare starter (I brew up extra starter to propagate yeast for the next batch).

 

[AnonyBrew]

Well, the cake was somewhat chunky and the yeast took off in the Barleywine last night so I guess I shouldn't be concerned. It was a different acting starter than I'm used to though.