Yeast Starters?

[Rory]

Hi,

 

 

 

I'm planning on brewing a sparkling ale. I have read a few different things about yeast starters but thought i'd ask the experts.

 

 

 

What is the best way to make a yeast starter? I have read that some use a couple of longnecks of sparkling ale in the starter, is this a good idea?

 

 

 

And one other quick question, I like my ales with a very strong hop aroma, if I added some extra hops to the original sparkling ale recipe what hops would you recommend and would they have any other effect than creating a more hopped flavor?

 

 

 

Thanks,

 

 

 

Rory.

[Oliver]

I made a Sparkling Ale recently as per instructions, but added a yeast starter from two longnecks of bought Sparkling Ale (as well as the supplied yeast) and steeped 20g of Pride of Ringwood hops in boiling water for about 10 minutes, then strained into the fermenter.

 

 

 

Initially the hop flavor was a bit overpowering, but it has now mellowed and the beer is sensational.

 

 

 

Maybe just add 15g of hops. You can always add more next time, but it's pretty hard to take them out if you overdo it this time!

[Rory]

Thanks Oliver - I think it may have been on your site where I read about it! Can you give me the steps to make the yeast starter as I've never made one before.

 

 

 

Actually any tips at all would be great as I'm still quite new to this beautiful game!

 

 

 

Slainte,

 

 

 

Rory.

[Oliver]

Rory,

 

 

 

There are various methods for making a starter.

 

 

 

There have been some other posts about it here. You could do a search.

 

 

 

Or check out www.homebrewandbeer.com/howtobrew.html at the top of the page.

[Rory]

Thanks - I'm off to the store to pick up the ingredients. I'll let you know how I go in a month or so.

 

 

 

Slainte!

 

 

 

Rory.

[Kai]

Just a quick tip, use the dregs from pale ale stubbies for your starter. The beer will be fresher and the yeast healthier.

[Rory]

Thanks Kai - Picked up 2 sparkling longnecks - going to harvest the yeast from them and make a starter.

[Kai]

It should probably still work with the sparkling longnecks, though remember they might have been sitting in the bottleshop for upwards of a year.

 

 

 

Worst case scenario is the yeast struggles to start and you're left enjoying two great bottles of beer.

[Rory]

Just got the starter going and it's bubbling away nicely. Used the yeast from 2 longnecks and the yeast in the kit. Going to let that go for a couple of days and then start the brew.

 

 

 

Will let you know how it goes.

[Kai]

If you threw the yeast from the kit in there too, odds are it is going to run out streets ahead of the yeast from the longnecks. There are a lot more viable cells in a sachet of dried yeast then there are in the dregs of a couple coopers bottles.

[Rory]

Hi Kai - run out? As I said I used the dregs of 2 longnecks and the yeast supplied with the sparkling kit. Mixed with about 500ml of boiled up water with a couple of tablespoons of light dry malt & a couple of dextrose.

 

 

 

It bubbled away for a couple of hours last night before I went to bed but wasn't bubbling when I got up this morning? Was I wrong to add the yeast sachet to the starter?

[Kai]

Not wrong, but I think the dried yeast will eat everything long before the coopers bottle dregs get a chance to multiply.

[PB2]

All viable cells pitched will help with fermentation. Reculturing of yeast at home is an in-exact process...and as such, results may vary significantly from brew to brew.

 

Personally, I think that the development of your own yeast culture is a most satisfying experiment. Over time, you may end up with a yeast strain (as I have) unique to your brewing!

[Kai]

All viable cells pitched will help with fermentation. [...]

 

 

 

Sure, but comparing the dregs of a couple longnecks to a sachet of dried yeast fit and ready to go, do you think the bottle yeast is going to contribute much at all? In the time it takes for a coopers bottle yeast starter to fire up for me, a rampant sachet would probably be three-quarters done on a whole batch.

 

 

 

But yes, culturing up your own yeast is fun and rewarding.

[PB2]

Sorry, I assumed that the slurry from the naturally conditioned bottles would have been reactivated in a mini-wort (maybe 500ml to 1 litre), displaying plenty of activity when pitched. The more the yeast culture is stepped up, the greater the population of cells and the more contribution it will make to flavour and aroma profiles.

 

 

 

Certainly, throwing in the slurry from a couple of bottles (without reactivating) at the same time as the dry yeast will not make much difference to the final brew.

[Dr Smurto]

Reculturing of yeast at home is an in-exact process...and as such, results may vary significantly from brew to brew.

Personally, I think that the development of your own yeast culture is a most satisfying experiment. Over time, you may end up with a yeast strain (as I have) unique to your brewing!

 

 

 

G'day Paul

 

 

 

Been brewing on and off for several years now but have never gone past the kits plus brew enhancer and extra hops stage (more for aroma than anything else altho i am partial to a hoppier brew). Still very easy to do with minimal fuss and result is a very drinkable beer.

 

 

 

Moving on to my own yeast culture sounds like another simple addition/improvement to this process. But i dont know how. Could you perhaps give a simple step by step guide on how to do this both before and after brewing. I assume if you are re-culturing you would collect some of the yeast from the bottom of the fermenter and revive it and then store it in the fridge?

 

 

 

Also, Coopers lager (commercial) is double hopped. How would a home brewer double hop? When i brew i would boil up the enhancer in a pot with 2L water and some hops for 10-15mins. After cooling slightly, i pour this through a stocking with a few extra hop pellets (assuming you get aroma here and not the extra bitterness) into a fermenter with the contents of the kit. When commercial brewers say they double hop is it for extra bitterness or something else?

 

 

 

Lots of questions in one post but thought i'd set you a challenge!

 

 

 

Cheers

 

DrSmurto

[PB2]

Yes, you can reactivate the slurry from the bottom of the FV but I prefer to take it from bottles. A procedure for re-activating the yeast from bottles is detailed in the Dec02 newsletter.

 

 

 

If you are using hopped malt extract (a can of home brew) and make hop additions as you describe you are effectively producing a triple hopped brew. Hops in a 10-15 min boil will supply flavour more than extracting bitterness. You should get more aroma from the 3rd addition by adding them to the pot once it has cooled a bit and let steep for another 15mins.

 

 

 

Our Lager beer has SAAZ added in the whirlpool - mainly for aroma.

[kieran]

From a scientific perspective, there are both positive and negative arguments for collection of yeast post-fermentation. We all are aware of Darwin and his theory of natural selection, well a fermenting wort which yeast live in, is a microcosm of selection, mutation, and adaption. This means that the yeast you put in, isn't always the same that you take out at the end.

 

 

 

I'll list the for and againsts here:

 

 

 

For:

 

- Any yeast which was dead before addition will probably break down and be eliminated, and therefore not be collected and not go into your next brew.

 

- Through selection, the yeast that have survived are somewhat better adapted to your brewing conditions than native yeast before addition.

 

 

 

Against:

 

- Yeast that you collect afterward could have traces of wild yeast infection, if any got in. While this might not make the beer itself taste different, having a mixed population of yeast could cause a change in the proportion of yeasts in subsequent brews after multiple collections.

 

- Yeast taken at the end of a brew, or out of the bottle are going to be more hardy in high alcohol environments - and are perhaps not the best fermenters, flocculators, or might lack whatever other desirable aspects you are after. After a while your beers might not ferment out, or their characters could change.. this is the unfortunate flip-side to point 2 under 'fors'.

 

 

 

While end-of-brew collection is probably okay and hassle-free enough for most homebrewers, you can take it a step further if you want to save extra money on buying or acquiring yeast.

 

 

 

Rather than collect at the end of a brew, what you can do is make a starter and split that up into smaller aliquots - like say 10mL each. If you put them in water + glycerol at about 10-15% glycerol concentration (i.e. 10 parts glycerol, 90 parts water [1mL glycerol, 9mL water]) then you can freeze these at -20C, or if you have the ability, -80C (commercial deep deep freezers) or -176C (liquid nitrogen). The colder you can get them, the longer that will last in a frozen state. -20C is probably good for 4-6 months.

 

 

 

Then, before each brew, take out a tube of yeast from your freezer.. warm the tube or container in tepid water (NOT hot, you want it to warm quickly to room temp), then pour the yeast/water/glycerol slurry into some wort - say 100mL (0.1L). Let the yeast recover in the starter, and you have your starter. Toss that into your brew and you're off!

 

 

 

If you start to run out of your frozen stocks, when you make up your starter, freeze that 90mL or the 100mL starter back in 9 containers of 10mL each (or whatever you want), and dope the last 10mL that you have left back into another 100mL of wort for your brew of the day - this should start very quickly.

 

 

 

Using this technique, you are essentially putting in pristine yeast into your brews every time. Its probably not that necessary for homebrew, but if you get serious, or start buying commercial yeasts that go for $15 a throw, this is a great way to make your money go a lot further. Its criminal how much Wyeast and others charge for yeast when its so easy to D.I.Y.!

 

 

 

Additionally, you can always introduce your mates to this technique, and when you each come across new strains and freeze them down, you can do a swap and get your hands on top-grade strains for free, and make copies for yourself or other friends! :)

 

 

 

cya

 

Kieran

[Beerlust]

Sorry to drag up an old thread, but my question seemed appropriate here.

I pitched a CCA starter I made yesterday & to be honest, I didn't shake the flask a whole lot over the 2½ days it was in there.

Why is it important to shake/stir the yeast constantly in a starter wort? 

The reason I ask is I don't do this in my full brew wort (in the FV) & it ferments out just fine.

I'd be interested in thoughts.

Lusty.

[Greenyinthewestofsydney]

I thought it had to do with continually adding in oxygen which helped to speed up and also increase multiplication of yeast cells. 

[Otto Von Blotto]

Pretty much what greeny said. Usually you'd only agitate it for the first 24 hours if using a stir plate, but it is to get more oxygen in there. There are some growth charts on braukaiser which he'd done himself comparing stirred to non stirred and the growth rate was a fair amount higher in the stirred starters.

[Mark D Pirate]

I keep it spinning the entire time and at higher temps (25°) 

@Beerlust if you need a culture of CCA I always have it,  can give you a slant to save you the reactivation step. 

I'd be interested to see how far mine has drifted from the original , Ester profile is spot on but for some reason I have to ferment cooler to reduce production levels 

[Beerlust]

Thanks for the comments Greeny, Otto Man, & Pirate. Much appreciated. 

I was aware that oxygenating the wort is beneficial, but really had no idea of the benefits in this starter space.

I've just had a play around with parts of the Mr. Malty Yeast calculator that I've never really looked at because I've never really needed to before. Comparing worst case scenarios of gathered slurry against yeast starters for growth is very interesting. For the benefit of the question I asked, the calculator gave estimates for each way to approach your desired method. For a simple starter to ferment out a 1.050 OG ale brew @ 21 litres with no introduced oxygen it would take a starter comprising 194 billion cells requiring 1.85 litres. At the opposite end of the scale if using a stirplate for growth (estimated at an average of 3 times) you'd only need 1 litre due to the constant aeration. The interesting parts were the middle efforts. With simple O² introduction at the start of the starter, the eventual required amount to pitch drops to 1.39 litres. With intermittent shaking it drops to a remarkable 1.07 litres that is a mere 70mls more than what is produced on a stirplate! 

Conversely the slurry route requires no starter. At the thinnest gathering (worst case scenario) containing the most impure concentration (worst case scenario) you'd only need approx. 250mls gathered from the trub.

Interesting stuff. 

Cheers,

Lusty.

[Otto Von Blotto]

That's why I use the braukaiser stir plate function, he's based his calculations on actual observations, whereas the Mr malty one allegedly doesn't. That function is included in the yeastcalc one as well. There is a reasonable difference in the amount of predicted cells between the two for the same size stirred starter, with the braukaiser one being higher. I've always had great success with it, although I'm sure it would be the same with the Mr malty one though as I would theoretically be growing more cells due to using a bigger starter based on its calculations.

One interesting thing about the braukaiser one is that you can start with a range of cell counts and still end up with pretty much the same count at the end. I think it's based on how many cells are needed to ferment each gram of extract.

[Mark D Pirate]

Yet another rabbit hole to explore