Yeast Starter = No Flame on Lip

[phero66]

I'm ashamed to admit but I forgot to flame the lip of my yeast starter when pitching- gah! It was covered in foil, but I used a stir plate which I imagine drew in air across the lip and deposited who knows what there.

My thinking is that there will be enough yeast from the starter to have a normal fermentation and likely any infection won't be found until a month or two after bottling once the yeast is mostly dormant and any residual bacteria get a chance to eat enough unfermentables (Its a stout that should have a FG of 1.016).

Has anyone made the same mistake and the beer turned out ok/bad? Usually I use temperature control on my fermentation but I'm thinking I should just let this one go a few degrees higher to maximize fermentation and then cold crash and possibly use finings (do these even drop out bacteria?) to fully clear the beer and then re-yeast with fresh yeast at bottling. Kind of like how traditional open fermented belgians are done where the chance of infection is higher....

 

[phoenixs4r]

I've never flamed the lip.....

You worry too much. Drink a beer.

 

[Seven]

I rarely flame the lip of my flasks when making/transferring yeast starters. No issues yet.

 

[bruin_ale]

I never flame the lip for starters. I only get out a flame when doing culturing/yeast banking as that's a small amount of yeast and it needs to be as pure as possible.

 

[Brew-boy]

I always flame the lip just something I do peace of mind kind of thing. Please post how your results came out.

 

[aubiecat]

I spray mine with Star San.

 

[AmandaK]

I've never flamed the lip.....

You worry too much. Drink a beer.

+Schfifty five.

 

[phero66]

Glad to hear it might not be an issue, day 1 of ferment so will post results in a few weeks.

Time for a beer

 

[kh54s10]

I've seen the flame technique on slanting videos, but never even thought about doing it for my starters. I sometimes remember to give it a spritz of Starsan but usually even forget to do that. I have made 22 batches with no problems at all.
Knock on wood!

It seems some people do everything the can to keep everything sanitized and still get infections and others are pretty lax and never get infections.

I will opt for keeping fairly good sanitation practices without obsessing over the possibility of infecting my beer.

 

[william_shakes_beer]

I have not once flamed the lip of my flask. Just squirt the foil and the flask with a little starsan, than shake shake shake shake shake

 

[rjsnau]

+1 for never flaming the lip of starters. The way I understand it is whenever you are slanting you should flame the lip due to the small amount of yeast to a large amount of "food" available. The risk for an infection is pretty high. With a starter, you have a large amount of yeast compared to "food" so the risk is pretty low.

Also, if you sanitized the flask before hand and then sanitized the foil you covered it with, there shouldn't really be much on the lips anyways. Even with a stirplate, I don't think much get drawn up. Like any fermentation, the co2 is being released and forced out.

 

[sweetcell]

+(whatever number we're at) for never flaming. read about it in the books, decided that star-san was good enough, have never had a problem.

i dunk the flask & foil in my bucket o' star-san, let 'em sit in there for 10 seconds, pull out, let drip upside-down for a second, cover the opening of the flask with the foil and proceed with starter-making (removing foil as required to add wort and yeast). booyah.

 

[BullGator]

I have never flamed my flask. Knock on wood but no infection yet.

I also wash my yeast and do not use a flame when pouring the yeast into the jars. This has worked successfully for me on several batches.

 

[Jukas]

I never flame my flask. I have a spray bottle full of star san. When I'm ready to pitch the starter I simply remove the foil and spray the exterior & interior of the mouth liberally and then decant & pitch.

 

[phero66]

Well thought I would give an update now that the batch has been bottled for awhile. So far no signs of infection, everything tastes as it should and no weird floaties or anything!

 

[beerloaf]

I never flame the lip of my starters but I do let my dog "lip" it a little due to their mouth being super clean.

beerloaf

 

[aubiecat]

I never flame the lip of my starters but I do let my dog "lip" it a little due to their mouth being super clean.

beerloaf

I LOL'd.