Yeast starter from old yeast - question

[propush]

Greetings!

Thanks for giving attention to my post.

I have made a starter in order to attempt to brew from my WLP530 (Belgian ale), which is about 1 year and 8 months old.

The starter is not perfect - the temp is about 20c, and it came out 1.05 and not 1.04. I do have a stir plate.

Now, it has been about 3 days, and I did measure gravity - and it is 1.04. So something is alive in there. I do not see krausen (some foam is there, but that can be the stir plate and sticky wort). I -MAY- be smelling this sweet smell which I think is the smell of WLP530 based on my experience with beers which use it. But maybe I am just imagining.

My question is - is there a way to tell if this is in fact WLP530, wild yeast or bacteria?

Any input will be much appreciated!

 

[finsfan]

As long as you sanitized like normal and have capped your yeast starter preventing unwanted wild yeast or bacteria from entering, it should just be the wlp530. I just recently made a starter with and pitched 11 month old yeast without a problem. I would be a little surprised if any of that wlp530 was still alive after almost two years, but if it works than it obviously is still alive. I would recommend leaving it on the stirplate for a few more days, let it settle for a day and decant, and stepping it up again. good luck!

 

[propush]

Have indeed sanitized, including the measurement equipment, and covered loosely with sanitized aluminum foil. Hope you are right indeed ;]

 

[finsfan]

Have indeed sanitized, including the measurement equipment, and covered loosely with sanitized aluminum foil. Hope you are right indeed ;]

You shouldnt have any worry that its infected then!

 

[WoodlandBrew]

I agree with the above posts, but just wanted to answer your question a little more directly.

Bacteriologic content can be determined by plating and observing large colony morphology. The presence of some bacteria can often be observed with a microscope. If you see small particles moving around you probably have a considerable amount of contamination. Wild yeast are generally more elongated than brewers yeast.

I'm not sure what volumes you used, but generally you'll want to start small with a low gravity when building up from small amounts of old yeast. (for example, a few milliliters of 1.020 wort)

 

[propush]

Well it was a full vile. Next time maybe I would start from 300ml or so?

 

[WoodlandBrew]

I'm sorry, I misunderstood. For some reason I thought you were building yeast from bottle dregs. A 1L starter is fine for a vial of old yeast.

 

[propush]

ah ok. In fact the reason I did it like this is that I was greedy and hoped to complete a two stage starter by the weekend for a beer. I've heard of doing a smaller weaker starter for a situation like this. But I don't like waiting (which is a problem in this buisnes :] )