Hi Fred,
I know that I am comming a bit late to the party, although you mentioned a couple of things which interest me.
You are making 5 gallon starters. Are you using glass carboys? I would assume that a stir plate would not work well due to the shape of the bottom of the carboy, therefore you must be adding oxygen via a centerstone or what ever method you normally do. Then let it ferment just as a regular batch of beer would. I find this interesting because I am starting to ferment in Sanke kegs. I could create just one starter in the Sanke. Instead of having to go through a couple of starter steps to get to the volume which I need. Once it has completed it’s starter phase, rack off the liquid. Add the wort, oxygenate and stream line my efficency. This would be vary helpful when needing to create large starters for big beers.
You drink the starter liquid after the process has completed. Of course this is a low grade of beer, 1.020 - 1.040 SG. I have not done this and it sounds interesting. Have you come up with ways to make this more palatable after the beer has been racked off the yeast cake? You must be adding hops to the starter wart for a preservative, since you plan on keeping it. So many questions come to mind, although I will just focus on this right now. I like the idea of a fresh yeast cake to keep the flavors of the beer I am actually wanting to make, not be affected by other background residual flavors. So as an example, I would like to make a Strong Scotch Ale using 1728 yeast, 1.086 SG, 12 Gal, ferminted at 60F. The starter could be 5.25 Gal. boil volume, 5 Gal. batch volume, wort gravity 1.040 from Amber DME, add yeast neutrent, hops same type going into main brew. Hops 1.5 oz. pellet @ 4.5 % AA, 30 minute boil. Total bitterness 16.48 IBU. Cool to 60F, add oxygen, and pitch 2 Wyeast 1728 smack packs. This hopefully should create enough of a yeast cake 706 Billion cells needed for the 1.086 wart to follow, and also add enough hops for preservative, and flavor of the starter beer.
Is this what you do or have you come up with something else to improve the process and flavor?
I think he was being clever. The idea is simply to brew a low gravity beer just as you normally would. I am fond of brewing an ordinary bitter (1.035ish) and reusing the yeast for a barley wine, or brewing a table saison and follow it with a really big saison, belgian golden → tripple, scottish 40/- → wee heavy etc. no stir plate, normal preferment oxengenation
I think what he’s talking about is re-pitching the yeast from a batch in the 1.040-1.055 range. Just make a batch of beer as normal, keg/bottle, and save the yeast in the bottom of your fermenter for another batch. Its a great way to save some money as well as the additional effort of a starter.
Thanks for the update guys. It makes since.
Like killing two birds with one stone.
More then one way to skin a cat.
Oh, don’t want to make any animal advocates out there agitated.
Just a joke.
I do this essentially with the first pitch of a new yeast. I’ll make a starter, then brew a 1.045ish batch of something fairly light, then use the yeast cake for slurry for future batches. You get a nice light drinker and a few pitches of fairly clean looking yeast out of it.
I will admit a little something. I have not made a starter in two years or so. I just make 10 gallons of low gravity beer and pitch 2 or 3 vials (or 1 vial for low gravity belgians and wheats if they are fresh) per carboy and aerate very well. Then I keg that and drink it while I use that harvested yeast to make my other beers. Yeah, the harvested yeast does tend to make better beer very often, but the 2-3 vials per makes perfectly acceptable beer.
I figure it costs about the same to pitch 2 vials per carboy than it does to make two starters when you count in the DME.
Well, I think it’s a little cheaper to make the starter, but it depends on how much your time is worth to you versus paying a little extra to just pitch the yeast and not worry about it.
Do you guys “rinse” the yeast cake prior to repitching or just rack the fresh wort onto the yeast cake? I tend to “rinse” the yeast but am wonder if this step is really worth the time…
I dump the yeast cake into a couple sanitized mason jars, cover with cling wrap, then put the jar lid on. No rinsing. Usually just pitch a whole jar, or I’ll add some of the cooled wort to a growler, pitch the yeast into that to get it going, while the main wort is cooling further in the chest freezer. Seems to work out pretty well.
I don’t usually pitch yeast from a darker beer to a lighter beer. But I wonder if that matters…
I reuse yeast by saving in a ziplock gallon plastic bag. If I use it within a month, I pitch directly with approximately a third, a half, three quarters or all (based on weeks from harvest). After a month, I will rinse and make a starter or consider tossing it. I write the date of harvest on the bag, along with yeast type. I have used dark slurry for lighter beers without any appreciable effect on color of the repitched beer. YMMV.
+1. Tried it both ways, and there was absolutely no difference in the quality of the resulting beers. So for the last 20 years (at least), no rinse.
I do tend to reuse the yeast cakes (stored in an jar or flask in a 34°F fridge) within 3 weeks or less, so I can’t speak for whatever advantages rinsing may have for yeast which needs to be stored longer. If you switch off and use lots of different strains and the yeast cakes need to be stored longer, it may be a different story.
But if, like me, you primarily use 1 or 2 strains for the bulk of your brewing and brew fairly regularly, the rinse is unnecessary…even through multiple repitching.
Our club just started doing 20-25 gal. batches on a local micro brewers pilot system. It will be served in his pub (with a discount to club members) and features our club’s own tap handle. The brewer is hoping there will be enough interest for someone to brew a batch every month. It’s fun for our club, but the brewer says in the long run it will save him money too. Instead of paying $xxx for a commercial pitch from WL or Wy he
will harvest a stepped up batch of yeast ready to pitch. That would be a 25 gal. starter that we can drink.
I can’t imagine this being a problem. I would LOVE to do pilot brews for a commercial brewery. AND they would be on tap?! Pretty awesome perk of being a club member.