Yeast Starter

[Jake]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAssRh_O6fs&feature=related

So I just watched this video and was wondering about this guys technique. He doesn't have a stir plate or anything like that, just does it on the stove (boils for 15 mins), throws the mixture of DME and sanitized water into a growler with the yeast, shakes vigorously, attaches air lock, and is ready within 24 hours.

It's a short video, but the guy makes it look pretty simple.

So I'm wondering about the viles we have. How would I get the gelatin out? Do I just add some sanitized water to it also? I think I missed that part of the demo when Thomas was there.

[Richard]

Thomas had something that looked like a turkey baster, sanitised it well, drew cool wort (post-sterilisation) out of the starter, put it in the vial, and "shakes the piss out of it". Drop that into the wort; you're done.

I do my starters in a growler too, but you really have to be careful about the heat stress on the glass. I had one explode once because I was dumb enough to chuck it in a water bath to try and cool the mixture faster.

[Jake]

Alright couple quick questions:
1. How much DME and water for a 5 gallon batch? I've heard 1 litre is about right with half cup of DME ... I've also heard a full cup of DME per litre.
2. Is 24 hours enough? Can it go a couple days before pitched? Is there a limit on how long it's good for (assuming my brew day gets delayed)?

[Thomas]

I would recommend using metric when making starters since imperial is stupid. Cups, half cups and quarts are not sensitive enough measurements when making this small of a batch, and a good digital scale used for measuring hops will work for DME too (you can also measure your water on a digital scale too since 1ml water = 1 gram). Although he recommends 75g/1000ml that would produce a wort of 1.027 (Beertools), while using  100g/1000ml should produce a 1.038 wort, closer to the starting gravity recommended by John Palmer.
 Some people say you should make a starter that mimics the beer your yeast will eventually be fermenting (ie: a weak wort starter for a lighter beer, and a stronger starter with dark extract for a more complex beer [malty IIPA, Stout]), and I think the idea behind this reasoning is to expose the yeast to the same kinds of complex sugars and high osmotic pressure that they will be fermenting in. This should activate select enzymes within the yeast to make them more efficient. BUT, the whole idea of a starter is to INCREASE the number of available, viable yeast cells. If the yeast are healthy, and there are enough for a proper pitching rate they will activate whatever genes they need once in the wort. Therefor, it is my recommendation to make all you starters the same way (O.G. ~1.038) with light DME.

 When it comes to pitching your starter there are two options:
1) Pitch at high krausen. Plan your brewday so that you are ready to pitch your full yeast starter into your fresh wort once the starter is at maximal activity. This may mean making your starter early in the morning or the night before (anywhere from 12-24 hours). Doing so will mean your yeast are vigorously growing and dividing and will quickly start fermentation of your beer. However, there are two drawbacks to this in my mind A) you will be adding 1-2 liters of your spent starter wort to your carefully crafted beer, it may not hurt any but I would rather not throw it all in. B) Pitching at maximal activity may mean healthy yeast, but there might not be enough of them for a proper pitching rate.

2)Cold crash and pitch. Let your starter completely ferment out until there is not more activity or bubbling (1-3 days with stir plate, 2-5 days without stirring). Stick it in your fridge for a minimum of 12 hours (longer if possible) to sediment the yeast. Decant the spent wort leaving just enough to rouse the yeast and dd it to your beer. I prefer this method for a number of reasons A) you ensure the maximum number of yeast are produced in your starter B) you do not add spent wort to your beer, which is good if you make big beers like me that require 2-3L of starter C) the cold crash causes the yeast to produce osmoprotectants such as trehalose and glycogen, which stabalize the yeast membrane against environmental stresses such as being dumped into a high gravity wort.

Anyhow, those are my thoughts, but everyone does things a little differently in homebrewing so you can take them or leave them. Sorry if this is just a lot of stupid confusing nonsense. If it helps I can do a starter demonstration at any meeting one is requested, or demonstrate general yeast handeling techniques. Next time I put on a starter I will take pictures of the whole process and start a thread on here outlining everything. I can also write up some wiki pages on starters and yeast if Richard can show me how.

[Richard]

If it helps I can do a starter demonstration at any meeting one is requested

Alright man, I will shortly have some yeast to add to the library (french saison), and figure when I get this to you we could do a proper recording of a yeast-starter demo so we can just keep it on the site (via youtube).

I'm planning something similar to demonstrate a brew-day...

[sdixon]

I'm looking forward to a french saison in the library!

[Jake]

Thanks Thomas. So I'll use 100g in a litre of water. So once I add the 1056 vile to that, can I give it a a day or so to ferment, and then chill between the 24-48 hour mark (so chill it at the point of highest yeast activity)? or should I wait for it to ferment out if i'm going to chill?

[Jake]

Oh and one last question. I'm very tight when it comes to the heating bill in my house, so right now the warmest room in my house is the living room where the dog hangs out, where I have it around 17 degrees ...  the heat is off in the rest of the house throughout the day, so the rest of house is more like 13 or 14. Is 17 degrees warm enough to get the starter going, or will I need to turn up the heat?

[Thomas]

When making starters from these slants you need to go by the activity you see, not by any defined period of time. Otherwise you might stick a starter into the fridge before it has begun to grow and it will be no good! I made a starter last week without a stir plate to see how it grew. It took 3-4 days to show any activity and another 2-3 days before fermentation has visibly ceased and I stuck it into the fridge. I would concider a starter to have completed growth when the krausen has collapsed and there are not more, or very few, bubbles of CO2 travelling up through the wort (not out of the airlock, you should not put one on a starter, but instead cover the top in sanitized tinfoil).
13-17 degrees is pretty cold for a starter since it is a very small volume of liquid it will rapidly cool to room temp and not be able to generate the massive amounts heat a 5 gallon batch could produce, it will also take your starter considerably longer to grow at those temps. When growing a starter without a stir plate I place them on top of my water heater which keeps them 1-3 degrees warmer then room temperature, and since most water heaters are in closets they are protected from light as well.

[Jake]

Alright I'm gona give it a go tonight with hopes that it will be ready for thursday or friday. Instead of chilling, I may just throw the entire thing into the wort including the krausen, just to cut down the time required.

Another point, why no airlock on a starter? Wouldn't be easier to see the yeast activity from the bubbling of the airlock? Tinfoils just as easy, but I'm just wondering why you suggested not using the airlock.

[Jake]

So I'm doing the starter right now and the geletin wont seem to come out of the slant .. I took it out of the fridge just before I started. Was I supposed to take it out a while before? May have fucked it up lol

[Jake]

Alright, so based on my experience, I'm assuming that I was supposed to take the slant out of the fridge well in advance to allow it to soften up?

I had a real hard time getting it out of the slant, and eventually resorted to taking one of my gf's sewing needles to scrape it out into the starter (sterilized the needle first of course). Shook the hell out of the starter after I added the slant contents and there's still chunks of geletin floating around in the starter, but I'm assuming they'll dissolve by tomorrow morning.

Not too pleased with how things went but pretty sure it's my own fault. So, do you think the starter is going to be ok? or would I be better off pitching dog shat into my next batch; no shortage of that in the back yard.

[Richard]

So long as the needle was sterilised you should be alright... the substrate is just a bunch of something like gelatin and malt extract (I forget exactly what). In future don't worry about getting the gel out - just try to get all the visible yeast traces - that's the good stuff

Smell the starter once it's done... if it smells bad don't use it.

[Jake]

Another concern is that of the starter size. I wasn't really thinking tonight. I did 100g of DME mixed with 1 litre of water. After boiling for 15 or 20, it was more like 750mls of water, therefore higher gravity. Should this matter? I should have started boil with 1.25 litres I think

[sdixon]

Yeah, you don't add the agar (gelatin) to the starter. You add small amounts of the cooled wort into the test tube with a turkey baster and put the cap back on the test tube and shake it (dissolving the yeast culture) and add to your starter. I had to repeat this about 5 or 6 times (I just finished one myself just now, from a Kolsch yeast slant) before the yeasty bits were gone from the agar. I don't imagine the agar will hurt your starter though, so you should be good. You can name this an agar beer ;-)