So what kind of water do you guys use to dilute the can to 'propper' starter gravity?
Yeast, yeast starters and stir plates for the newbie
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That's good to know! Similar to how it inhibits Lactobacillus?
Like 10 IBUs worth? Boil a few drops of hopshot in a starter wort for 15 or 30 minutes?
But it won't denature the toxins if already in there.
Your supposed to use distilled water. I just dump the can in my flask then fill can with distilled and pour that into the flask . I give it a swirl towards the end to make sure all contents of can pour out.
I haven't used any of the canned starters, but since I decant (usually), I just make my starters with tap water. I don't even treat for chlorine. Never had any problems.
Hope you wipe the mouth/top of the water container with Starsan before pouring.
What water container? The kitchen faucet? No, I don't. I take precautions, but nowhere near what I read others do as far as sanitation. Whatever I am doing it has been working. One infected bottle out of 107, mostly 5 gallon batches of beer over a dozen wines and one cider.
![Craft A Brew - Safale S-04 Dry Yeast - Fermentis - English Ale Dry Yeast - For English and American Ales and Hard Apple Ciders - Ingredients for Home Brewing - Beer Making Supplies - [1 Pack]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41fVGNh6JfL._SL500_.jpg)
That was related to the water used for the Propper cans, they need to be diluted 1:1.
I use kitchen faucet water for starters, brewing, but that gets boiled anyway, never an issue.
Now if I needed water for cold top up or no-boil brews, etc. I'd be a little more concerned. I can remove the combination spray head easily, I often do, such as for filling brewing water buckets without sending water through the aerator. The hose flange that's left is easy to sanitize if I needed to.
I do vitality starters. Basically a small starter four hours before you pitch. I do make my own starter wort by pressure canning, it's at 250° for 15 minutes. Here is a Brulosophy experiment where they did a vitality starter and a regular starter. http://brulosophy.com/2015/06/29/ye...e-cell-count-vs-vitality-exbeeriment-results/
I spray the bottle top and I clean and spray the top of the can .
RPh_Guy
Bringing Sour Back
Right and right.
AFAIK, hops are bacteriostatic against all gram positive bacteria.
I found a study showing hops inhibit Clostridium specifically, but I didn't really delve into how much hops were needed.
If there's headspace in the jars, really the oxygen in there is all you need to inhibit Clostridium growth. It's a strict anaerobe.
To get food poisoning you'd need to have a Clostridium botulinum spore contamination in a vessel without oxygen (no headspace) and pH>4.5, stored unrefrigerated. (And not boiled under pressure)
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Even "refrigerated" there's a risk of botulism, isn't it?
Blazinlow86
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The advantage of liquid yeast is a much larger variety. Could be in my head but I prefer the liquid equivalents of us05. Cheers
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OpenSights
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Thanks for all the good advice! I would’ve been doing it wrong!
RPh_Guy
Bringing Sour Back
True, but it would grow a little more slowly.
Leaving headspace and hopping would provide adequate protection from Clostridium though, regardless of refrigeration.
Personally I don't make the wort in advance. Contamination of any kind is too risky in my opinion.
I'd rather make up a fresh batch of starter wort with a buck's worth of DME each time, than take risks with canned wort. About a cup of DME in a liter of water, boil a few minutes, cool, and pitch yeast into it. Easy.
Don't want to hijack the thread, but does anyone have insight into WHY you need a starter at all?
I know about the calculators, pitching rates, etc... I know where to find the baselines on what you are supposed to do, but not why you have to do it.
Theoretically, why can't I start with one single cell in a 5 gallon batch, and have it ferment out correctly if I wait long enough (just going to the extreme example to illustrate the question).
Why does the volume of wort matter to the yeast at all?
I know about the calculators, pitching rates, etc... I know where to find the baselines on what you are supposed to do, but not why you have to do it.
Theoretically, why can't I start with one single cell in a 5 gallon batch, and have it ferment out correctly if I wait long enough (just going to the extreme example to illustrate the question).
Why does the volume of wort matter to the yeast at all?
It's actually a good question! It probably has been asked 100s of times and answered just as many:
Why yeast starters?
For liquid yeast:
- Prove viability
- Ramp up cell count for pitches
- It reduces lag time and crowds out other microorganisms present in the wort/must so they can't get a foothold before the yeast does
- Arguably may result in better beer
- Boost cell health (vitality)
Dry yeast pitches do not require a starter or re-hydration prior to pitching. They are even discouraged by the manufacturer(s). Pitch by simply sprinkling yeast granules onto the wort surface. Allegedly wort aeration/oxygenation is not needed or recommended either. But theoretical and empirical evidence for these 'recommended methods' is hard to find.
LittleRiver
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One good reason is that you can buy a strain of yeast one time, and brew on that single purchase for a very long time.
Overbuild a starter, pitch half of it, save the other half in the fridge for next time, when you again overbuild a starter and save half of it. Repeat...
Ok, so... in a perfectly sterile lab environment (for the sake of argument, zero other microbial competition, which of course we don't have in our garage/kitchen), no starter would ever be needed?
I get the points about proving viability and wanting the yeast to be plentiful and get a foothold before anything else (and building more for later use), but I also read stuff about beer tasting wrong with an under-pitch, etc. This is the part I don't get. If we had that perfectly sterile lab environment, could I pitch 1/10th of a pack of dry yeast into a 20 gallon batch, wait long enough, and have the right beer come out? I understand that it would take way longer since the yeast would have to start multiplying from a much smaller starting number in that case.
I get the points about proving viability and wanting the yeast to be plentiful and get a foothold before anything else (and building more for later use), but I also read stuff about beer tasting wrong with an under-pitch, etc. This is the part I don't get. If we had that perfectly sterile lab environment, could I pitch 1/10th of a pack of dry yeast into a 20 gallon batch, wait long enough, and have the right beer come out? I understand that it would take way longer since the yeast would have to start multiplying from a much smaller starting number in that case.
If that 5 gallon wort is sterile and kept sterile except for your single yeast cell and her daughters, yes, theoretically she could ferment that batch. But she won't, not like that.
LittleRiver
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Google "benefits of yeast starter".
The first page of results will give you links to some good articles and discussions, that should answer all your questions.
The first page of results will give you links to some good articles and discussions, that should answer all your questions.
You'll never find a consensus on the topic, and there are many brewers who have directly pitched a single pack of liquid yeast w/o ever doing starters and their beers have turned out fine. Others...not so much. For me, making a starter is a means of gaining an edge against all the variables that can work against me. Viability of the yeast, age of the packet and the unknowns of how it was stored between mfr. and me, cell count, sanitation of the wort, and so on. It's not some mysterious thing that I'm compelled to do. In using starters I have observed much more vigorous fermentations, which have taken off in hours, not days. IMO, the extra effort is worth it. YMMV.
Also...some aeration and a pinch of yeast nutrient in the starter will help it along.
Also...some aeration and a pinch of yeast nutrient in the starter will help it along.
There's more. As it was explained to me by a biologist, when you underpitch you get only a few generations before you run out of oxygen, and w/o enough oxygen, the yeast start cannibalizing each other.
With a gross overpitch, the yeast use up the sugar but aren't converting enough to alcohol.
So--a starter gets the yeast going, and increases the number of cells available.
****
Below is a bunch of "bullet points" partly from my experience, partly from notes I took at Chris White's (White Labs!) yeast workshop I attended in March.
****
I did an interesting batch last weekend--a kolsch using WLP029. It's a variation of a recipe my son did--he was home, brought a growler of that kolsch he'd brewed. Excellent beer. I had seconds.
So we decided to brew a variation while using most of his methods. He did a rest at 125 degrees which, because he has a grainfather, he can do. Give a kid a hammer and the whole world becomes a nail....
Anyway, he ramped up from there to 149, so I did something similar w/ my RIMS system--started at 132 (underestimated how much the strike water would cool, first time doing this particular approach), held it there for 10 minutes, then ramped it up to 149.
Adjusted the recipe slightly as I was doing LODO techniques--went from my son's 12# of pils malt to 6# pils, 6# 2-row, 12 oz of white wheat, and 12 oz of munich.
Brew day went off without a hitch, pumped the wort into the fermenter, then oxygenated. And then did what Chris White said he'd do (when we were at his yeast workshop in March) which is to just pitch the yeast directly into the fermenter, no starter.
Well...it went against my best instincts so I did it. That's what my son did, trying to approximate his methods. Let it sit at 70 degrees for 8 hours than ramped down to 60 for fermentation. It took a day for there to be evidence of bubbling, and then it occurred to me why I might not want to do that.
****
Why might I not want to just pitch with no starter? One reason I like starters to take off like gangbusters when pitched is to get them going so as to outcompete any nasties that might be in there. The other reason, which I hadn't considered, is that I spent all this effort on using LODO techniques to create the wort, only OXYGENATE the wort and have it sit for 24 hours before any sign of activity. During which time, I'm sure I was oxidizing the wort. Now I know during some of that time the yeast is taking up that oxygen during the lag phase, but still....
[This is actually also an argument for not oxygenating at all and pitching dry yeast.....I have to think on that one.]
Despite that, I pitched on Saturday at 4pm; no evidence of activity until Sunday 4pm. It started slow, then moved ahead with...alacrity, I suppose. This morning, Thursday, at 6:30am, TILT tells me gravity has fallen to 1.010. I bumped up the temp to 69 yesterday afternoon and evening once gravity hit 1.020, and sealed up the fermenter to allow it to self-carbonate.
We'll see how it turns out. I'm sure I muted some of the LODO effect but then again, my son didn't do any of that stuff.
*******
One reason I pitch at a higher temp is that, according to White, optimal temperature during propagation (when yeast multiplies) is 5-10 degrees higher than during fermentation (when yeast are making alcohol). So I pitched the above yeast at 70, let it sit there for 8 hours, then started to drop the temp.
*******
From my notes from the workshop: Chris said to let starters go 24 hours or even 48 hours. He said you want the yeast to starve a bit to build up a reserve. I'm aiming for 18 hours, which isn't what he said. And yet, fermentation takes off when I do it that way, and the beer tastes great (not just me). So....jury still out on this, afaic. Still learning, I am.
*******
White said when he pitched starters, he'd pitch the whole thing, as I do. I'm not sure the reasoning behind that if he let them go up to 48 hours and the yeast had gone dormant at that point, starving a bit, except maybe he eliminated the extra step many go through of crashing and decanting.
******
He also said that overpitching is really only a problem with repitching entire yeast cakes.
******
Effect on flavor byproducts: if you add more yeast, they grow less, and thus make fewer flavor compounds.
******
I don't claim to be a yeast expert. In fact, the more I learn about this, the less I feel I "know." I seem to have stumbled onto an approach that works well, but I'm not saying it's the only approach that can work well.
With a gross overpitch, the yeast use up the sugar but aren't converting enough to alcohol.
So--a starter gets the yeast going, and increases the number of cells available.
****
Below is a bunch of "bullet points" partly from my experience, partly from notes I took at Chris White's (White Labs!) yeast workshop I attended in March.
****
I did an interesting batch last weekend--a kolsch using WLP029. It's a variation of a recipe my son did--he was home, brought a growler of that kolsch he'd brewed. Excellent beer. I had seconds.
So we decided to brew a variation while using most of his methods. He did a rest at 125 degrees which, because he has a grainfather, he can do. Give a kid a hammer and the whole world becomes a nail....
Anyway, he ramped up from there to 149, so I did something similar w/ my RIMS system--started at 132 (underestimated how much the strike water would cool, first time doing this particular approach), held it there for 10 minutes, then ramped it up to 149.
Adjusted the recipe slightly as I was doing LODO techniques--went from my son's 12# of pils malt to 6# pils, 6# 2-row, 12 oz of white wheat, and 12 oz of munich.
Brew day went off without a hitch, pumped the wort into the fermenter, then oxygenated. And then did what Chris White said he'd do (when we were at his yeast workshop in March) which is to just pitch the yeast directly into the fermenter, no starter.
Well...it went against my best instincts so I did it. That's what my son did, trying to approximate his methods. Let it sit at 70 degrees for 8 hours than ramped down to 60 for fermentation. It took a day for there to be evidence of bubbling, and then it occurred to me why I might not want to do that.
****
Why might I not want to just pitch with no starter? One reason I like starters to take off like gangbusters when pitched is to get them going so as to outcompete any nasties that might be in there. The other reason, which I hadn't considered, is that I spent all this effort on using LODO techniques to create the wort, only OXYGENATE the wort and have it sit for 24 hours before any sign of activity. During which time, I'm sure I was oxidizing the wort. Now I know during some of that time the yeast is taking up that oxygen during the lag phase, but still....
[This is actually also an argument for not oxygenating at all and pitching dry yeast.....I have to think on that one.]
Despite that, I pitched on Saturday at 4pm; no evidence of activity until Sunday 4pm. It started slow, then moved ahead with...alacrity, I suppose. This morning, Thursday, at 6:30am, TILT tells me gravity has fallen to 1.010. I bumped up the temp to 69 yesterday afternoon and evening once gravity hit 1.020, and sealed up the fermenter to allow it to self-carbonate.
We'll see how it turns out. I'm sure I muted some of the LODO effect but then again, my son didn't do any of that stuff.
*******
One reason I pitch at a higher temp is that, according to White, optimal temperature during propagation (when yeast multiplies) is 5-10 degrees higher than during fermentation (when yeast are making alcohol). So I pitched the above yeast at 70, let it sit there for 8 hours, then started to drop the temp.
*******
From my notes from the workshop: Chris said to let starters go 24 hours or even 48 hours. He said you want the yeast to starve a bit to build up a reserve. I'm aiming for 18 hours, which isn't what he said. And yet, fermentation takes off when I do it that way, and the beer tastes great (not just me). So....jury still out on this, afaic. Still learning, I am.
*******
White said when he pitched starters, he'd pitch the whole thing, as I do. I'm not sure the reasoning behind that if he let them go up to 48 hours and the yeast had gone dormant at that point, starving a bit, except maybe he eliminated the extra step many go through of crashing and decanting.
******
He also said that overpitching is really only a problem with repitching entire yeast cakes.
******
Effect on flavor byproducts: if you add more yeast, they grow less, and thus make fewer flavor compounds.
******
I don't claim to be a yeast expert. In fact, the more I learn about this, the less I feel I "know." I seem to have stumbled onto an approach that works well, but I'm not saying it's the only approach that can work well.
