Wyeast, starter necesarry?

[duskb]

It says there's enough in that smack pack to innoculate 5 gallons of wort. Skip a starter? Y/N?

 

[DrinkinSurfer]

At the end of the day it is your choice. For low ABV brews you should be fine. Mid-High strength, you should probably use a starter.

 

[duskb]

At the end of the day it is your choice. For low ABV brews you should be fine. Mid-High strength, you should probably use a starter.

This starts at ~ 1.044. It's a stout. Am I to assume this is a mid strength beer?

 

[Baldy_Beer_Brewery]

An IPA I brew often is over 1.060 and I've never had a problem with the smack packs and I think that is a tad over what Wyeast claims it is good for.

 

[samc]

I've done 1.050 beers with Wyeast and no starter, they worked. However they work better with a starter.

 

[duskb]

I've done 1.050 beers with Wyeast and no starter, they worked. However they work better with a starter.

I'm not against doing it, just wondered if it's necesarry. I usually do it with WLP yeasts regardless of the brew. The disclaimer on the bag sort of confused me though.

 

[sigurdur]

You can expect approximately the same amount of yeast count in a White Labs vial and Wyeast activator.
If you prefer making starters for the White Labs vials, then you should feel the same way for the Wyeast packs IMHO.
You can use Mr. Malty's PRC to see what the recommended pitching rate is for your brew.
http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html

If you have a very viable yeast package (94% viability) and you are trying to innoculate 19 liters of wort (~5 gallons) at approximately 1.044 OG, then you need approximately 155 billion cells of yeast according to the PRC.
Personally I would make a starter

 

[Bensiff]

1 pack is good for things like a Bitter. You will probably be fine with 1.044, but a starter is still worthwhile to help with consistent results.

 

[prosper]

if it's extremely fresh, it should be good. Just make sure you aerate plenty. If not, it will probably still work, but personally I like my beers to be better than just 'good enough,' so I generally build a starter.

 

[soundsandsuds]

I was told by my local homebrew store that they're fine without doing a starter if they're less than 6 weeks from the manufacture date (printed on the package.).

 

[duskb]

I went ahead and made the starter. I'm glad I did this yeast (Wyeast London Ale) is moving slow. Usually wiht a starter I see activity within 24 hours. I'm getting CO2 production but no real krausen to speak of. Hopefully by tomorrow.

 

[prosper]

some strains are pickier than others. Highly flocculant strains in particular are sensitive to proper pitching rate and oxygenation. Underpitching these SOB's will usually result in yeast that want to leave before the job is done. I've had issues with 1275 Thames Valley in the past - it REALLY REALLY needs lots of oxygenation to get full attenuation.

 

[Denny]

Every beer I've made a starter for has turned out better than any beer I didn't.

 

[steinsato]

The age of the yeast is also a big factor. If it was made 2-3 months ago, I would do a starter.

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

Depends on what you are after.

If you want the yeast character that the lab has painstaking tested and evaluated the yeast for, then I say you pitch the pack within the use date.

If however you want to reduce/minimalize said character, by all means make the starter.

 

[kingmatt]

Depends on what you are after.

If you want the yeast character that the lab has painstaking tested and evaluated the yeast for, then I say you pitch the pack within the use date.

If however you want to reduce/minimalize said character, by all means make the starter.

I'm confused, how would making a yeast starter "reduce/minimalize" the character of the yeast?

 

[prosper]

ester production mainly occurs during cell growth. The more the yeast has to multiply, the more yeast character you'll get. However, it's quite difficult to over-pitch on a home-brewing scale. You may be able to by pitching fresh wort on an entire yeast cake from an entire batch that's only a week or so old (but, if you let your beer sit on that yeast cake for 3 or 4 weeks, the viable cell count will probably be down enough that you're no longer outside of the 'recommended pitching rate' window.) Even a 1 gallon starter at 1.040 should still leave plenty of room for ester production.

 

[winvarin]

+1 to big starters. I just graduated to my big boy beaker for this last beer. 2 liters. I made a 1.3 l starter and am happy with the results so far.

I'm glad I went for a big starter because although I still a couple of months from the WLP "Best By" date, I saw little activity or floccuation for the first 2 days I had the yeast in the beaker. It was day 3 before I saw any change and at that point, the yeast really kicked into gear.

Brew day came and I pitched about 800ml of slurry. I was trying to decant more but it's a wheat yeast and at about half a liter decanted, the yeast really started mixing back into the starter beer.

Pitching a single WLP vial (or even a mini starter in my old 500 ml flask) in the past has yielded start times more or less like yours. About 24 hours until ferment and full krausen really kicks in.

Not so with this big starter full of healthy, actively eating and reproducing yeast. I had my first signs of krausen in around 4.5 hours. Before I'd hit 8 hours, I'd had to empty the kitchen bowl that was collecting my blow off.

I'm sold on creating an appropriate sized starter of healthy yeast. I will be following the mrmalty calculator from here on out.

One question I have for you guys that typically do the big starters. How do you do it when something calls for a 3 or 4 liter starter? Let's say I was just using my 2l flask. Would I make a 2l starter, let it ferment out, decant and come back in with another liter of wort, let it ferment out. Then decant that and consider it a 3l starter?

 

[billvon]

I'm confused, how would making a yeast starter "reduce/minimalize" the character of the yeast?

Because during the reproduction phase (the period where they're using oxygen and multiplying like crazy) they generate different metabolites than when they are anaerobically converting sugar to alcohol. If some of that reproduction phase happens in a beaker full of extract, you'll get slightly different metabolites than you will get if the yeast are going in your wort.

Neva Parker from White Labs gave a talk on this very topic a few months ago. Her surprising result was that starters really weren't all that necessary for high gravity beers - the FG was about the same no matter what size starter they used. However, oxygen and nutrients were very important, and indeed oxygenation has a significant effect on final gravity. (1.021 for no O2, 1.017 for 2 minutes O2.)

Based on what she said, it looks like oxygen and yeast nutrition are way more important than a starter.

 

[prosper]

that's if the only thing you're measuring is FG. There's more to good beer than just an appropriate FG

 

[GuldTuborg]

Neva Parker from White Labs gave a talk on this very topic a few months ago.

This talk (or the experiments/results) wasn't published anywhere, was it?

 

[billvon]

This talk (or the experiments/results) wasn't published anywhere, was it?

She sent out a .pdf with some of her results (although sadly not all of them.) I'll try to attach it.

 

[prosper]

even at the lowest pitching rate and highest gravity she's pitching 10million cells per mL, or 10 billion per L. If a smack-pack contains 100 billion viable cells, then that minimum underpitching rate is still the equivalent of 2 brand-new fresh smack packs in a 1.077 beer, or a ~2L starter. That's about four times as much yeast as you'd be pitching if you dumped a month-old smackpack directly into the wort. And that's what she considers to be underpitching by half.

 

[SumnerH]

It's not surprising that FG is the same; I'd expect the aerated, high-pitched, lots of nutrient wort to get to the FG faster and to have a cleaner flavor from less reproductive growth and less strained growth, but I would've thought the actual FG numbers would be pretty close. The reasons to pitch the right amount of yeast are to get the right flavor, not simply to attenuate more.

Her notes at the bottom agree with why a lot of people intentionally pitch at lower rates into their hefeweizens (to get more of the yeast-specific ester flavors into their beer).

 

[GuldTuborg]

She sent out a .pdf with some of her results (although sadly not all of them.) I'll try to attach it.

Thanks! Interesting stuff, there. I would have thought pitching rates to affect the FG more as well (only .4P difference?). Good to know.

Am I reading page 2 right? Higher pitching rates and oxygenation leads to more fusels and esters?

 

[duskb]

So I guess I'm slightly confused here. I went to the effort to create a starter and 3 days later I never saw any real activity aside from the venting of some CO2 gas (which I bled off occasionally as the bottle swelled a bit).

I've never had a starter that didn't leave me a big thick head of krausen once it was done. This just looks like a bottle of brown liquid. Is this normal behavior for Wyyeast 1028? Do I need to run this through another pass?