Yeast Starter
- Thread starter mrward83
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I use a stir plate, in which I only see a little foam swirling on top. When I turn the plate off, I get tiny bubbles at the couple hour mark. If I'm not stirring agressively, I think I get about a half inch of krausen. I make them in an erlenmeyer flask with foil on top, and maybe that's why I don't see much. They are also usually done by the 24 hour mark. Starters just aren't that impressive.
The two starters I have done with my stir plate, I got pretty decent activity through the airlock for a while. About a 1/2 inch kreusen that rose and fell in about 24 hours. Nothing too impressive, but damn does it give the fermentation a kick in the ass.
helmingstay
Active Member
Are you saying that weeks later your starter is still going, or just asking about a starter that you made a long time ago?
If you don't have a stir plate (they're fun and relatively easy to make, totally worth it for the "wow-your-friends" factor alone), there's been recent work showing that bubbling air with an aquarium pump and sterile filter works pretty well. I'd venture to say that a simple airlocked starter that's periodic shaken is more effort than it's worth -- e.g. it's not worth much, and you should expect to see little activity.
With a stirplate or bubbler, you don't want to run a starter for more than 48, maybe 72 hours? And 24 hours should be plenty. With air and agitation, the yeast go to high krausen fast and eat up all their sugars, and you don't want to leave them in a high 02 environment without food for very long at all...
If you don't have a stir plate (they're fun and relatively easy to make, totally worth it for the "wow-your-friends" factor alone), there's been recent work showing that bubbling air with an aquarium pump and sterile filter works pretty well. I'd venture to say that a simple airlocked starter that's periodic shaken is more effort than it's worth -- e.g. it's not worth much, and you should expect to see little activity.
With a stirplate or bubbler, you don't want to run a starter for more than 48, maybe 72 hours? And 24 hours should be plenty. With air and agitation, the yeast go to high krausen fast and eat up all their sugars, and you don't want to leave them in a high 02 environment without food for very long at all...
The starter is not still going but was pitched about 2.5 weeks ago. I saw little activity in the flask with almost no kreuzen build up. No stir plate was used during the process. I didn't see a need to pay for one considering cost and had not looked into building myself. Something tells me they are easy to build and I can probably get all the pieces from RadioShack or a hobby store sans the stir bars. Thanks for the help
Yeah, a stir plate is not essential. In fact, you can probably hit your yeast count with a decent sized flask by stepping up to the target you need. The plate just gets you there quicker, and it can reduce the number of steps, which minimizes the chance for infection.
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stratslinger
Well-Known Member
Well, playing with Mr Malty or YeastCalc will show that a stirplate will get you a significantly higher cell count with a smaller starter, so it'll be more cost/effort effective in the long run since you'll be using less extract since you'll be making smaller starters and less steps to get the same cell count, so there's that anyway.
In a typical starter though, there's very little total available sugar for the yeast to actually process, so it's not uncommon to completely miss the actual activity. Usually everything's done inside of 24 hours.
In a typical starter though, there's very little total available sugar for the yeast to actually process, so it's not uncommon to completely miss the actual activity. Usually everything's done inside of 24 hours.
helmingstay
Active Member
Really? With a rigged stirplate I go from clear wort to high krausen and totally opaque in something like 24 hours. The krausen drops fast, but the smell of yeast activity is really obvious, very bready? And the wort is opaque tan. In my experience, the change is night-and-day...
Some folks don't want to pitch the starter wort, and so put it in the fridge and cold-crash the yeast out. This works best with more flocculant strains, but also gives a nice visual representation of the total volume of yeast post-starter...
stratslinger
Well-Known Member
Sure, in your experience. Watch the boards here for a week or three, and see how many threads pop up asking about whether or not a starter actually worked, because someone didn't see any action out of their starter. You'd be surprised!
You should not be using an airlock on a starter
I don't get much activity in my starters because I use fermcap to keep the wort from boiling over on my stove.
There are alot of things that can effect starter activity. If you don't get much, I wouldn't worry about it. Just make sure you've done the process correctly and either use a stir plate or make sure you shake it often.
There are alot of things that can effect starter activity. If you don't get much, I wouldn't worry about it. Just make sure you've done the process correctly and either use a stir plate or make sure you shake it often.
