10 replies to this topic

[Big Nake]

It's been awhile since I tried to resurrect older yeast but yesterday I made a 2L starter (with about 7 ounces of DME), oxygenated it and added a vial of White Labs 940 Mexican Lager yeast with a date of May 2014 on it. I told myself that when I go to add the yeast, if I detect any funky smells at all, I would go grab something else out of the fridge like 2308, 2124, etc. Well the yeast smelled good so I added it and got it on the stirplate. I told myself I would be patient and brew either Friday, Saturday or Sunday based on the yeast's status. Of course there is NO activity yet. Has anyone gone for X amount of time and had yeast that didn't wake up and then... stay with me now... just added another strain of yeast to that same starter? I have never done this... I either had the yeast do its thing or tossed everything. I would like to get a brewday in one day this weekend.

[djinkc]

I would dump it before I added a different yeast. It'll probably start eventually but you won't get the cell count you wanted.

[Bklmt2000]

Give the starter another day to wake up, but if you want to get a brew day in this weekend, I'd suggest using a different yeast.

 

Even if the yeast starts to wake up now, I'd be concerned about having enough healthy cells to use for a batch.

[Big Nake]

Yeah, if the yeast looked to be "waking up" but it didn't look overly active or robust, I would probably put it off. But I was more interested in the idea of this yeast not taking off at all (like it's 5-6 days down the line and there is NO activity)... just toss the whole thing and start over? I hate making starters but I suppose that if it's suggested to not pitch a different yeast into the starter wort then it's better to be safe.

[gnef]

I think you went too big for the first step with old yeast. I probably wouldn't have gone over 200 mL, and then stepped it up as I observed the yeast and its health.

[Big Nake]

I think you went too big for the first step with old yeast. I probably wouldn't have gone over 200 mL, and then stepped it up as I observed the yeast and its health.

Are you saying that based solely on economics (I could have saved some DME) or is there a "quality" reason to start smaller? I am a "big-starter" newbie so I'm not sure what the logistics are on that. All of that said, this morning the starter has a small amount of foam on top of it so my guess is that it will take off and work just fine in an upcoming batch. I'm going to be patient and also hyper-critical of it. If it's active and it has a good aroma, I'll assume I'm good. But if it looks or smells funky, I may punt it. If it looks ready tomorrow, I'll have a double-brew weekend (wife is on a girls weekend) and if it's more like Monday or Tuesday... that's fine too.

[gnef]

I am saying it based on intuition at this point. I did all my research on starters long ago, and that was one thing that I recall. I don't have any direct evidence (though, I think I could find some).

 

In my mind, the logic is for the reason for starters in the first place, so that you don't pitch a small amount of yeast into too large of a volume. If there aren't enough viable yeast cells and you try to make too large of a starter, you have the same issue.

 

In our club with the yeast library, we start with a single colony on the agar, that goes into a 10 mL vial, when that has run its cycle, that goes into 100 mL, and then that goes in to 1-2 L. This is actually why I rarely get yeast from the club library, I don't have the patience or time in some cases to do the proper steps to grow up the yeast from a single colony.

 

With unknown viability in a vial or smack pack (smack pack gives you a bit of help in knowing viability), I would pitch in small starter, see how quickly it gets to active fermentation, and then based on that, either throw away, or pitch into a larger starter. If you can your starter wort, it makes things like this a lot easier. I also built a computer fan stir plate to help. When the yeast are healthy, they will be able to krausen the starter very quickly, if it takes too long, I don't think there were enough viable yeast cells to begin with.

 

I don't think you have enough time to do another step now though. If you are thinking of using this yeast for another beer though, what you can do is pitch almost all of it, and then fill your erlenmyer with ~100 mL of the wort from your current batch with just enough yeast left in the erlenmyer, and then grow that up in steps to a usable level. That will give you an opportunity to have very healthy yeast for the next batch.

[Big Nake]

Gnef, much appreciated. Over HERE, we were discussing starters, stepped-up starters, large starters, etc. and I came out of that conversation attempting to simplify my starter routine (I'm always trying to simplify things) and the idea of making one large (2L) starter with 7-8 ounces of DME seemed to be found reasonable and acceptable. I took a relatively fresh Wyeast pack of 2002 Gambrinus and made the starter that way and it took off in about 36 hours and I chilled it, decanted it and pitched it with good results. The consensus was that I might still be short on cell count but that it was better than my old (small) starter routine.

[gnef]

If it is fresh, going in to 2L is no problem at all, but what I was referring to was when the pack was older or of unknown viability.

 

I remember also hearing of a member who essentially kept a mother culture, would pull yeast from it as needed, then refill with fresh wort, and keep up the cycle for his house yeast. I always thought that was an interesting method for keeping yeast ready.

[Big Nake]

In the late afternoon and early evening yesterday, this starter started to rock. I went to bed after the Hawks game and took a look at it and it looked like it was about to blow out of the 2L flask so I decided it was ready to go. Got up this morning at 6:30 and looked at it... it had fallen back to just a thin layer of foam on top of the starter. I put the flask into the fridge to try to crash it and got everything ready for my batch (Hacienda Lager... a Victoria-inspired beer) and I'm thinking that it doesn't really have a lot of time to crash so I may end up pitching A LOT of that 2L volume because I don't want to lose cell count. Also, the starter smells lovely.

Edited by Village Taphouse, 26 April 2015 - 06:37 AM.

[gnef]

Sounds good, I'm glad it worked out for you in the end!