I made a starter this morning around 11am. The yeast is Omega OYL-113 Mexican Lager and it’s been in my fridge for a number of months (late last year I think). The date on the pack looks like Mar01.2021. I made a 1.5 liter starter with Briess Pilsen DME, cooled it and gave it a shot of O2. I did this today hoping it would be active by Saturday. If the yeast was stubborn I could brew Sunday too. Even though I know we have the originator of the SNS method here on our board, I am a creature of habit and make starters on a stirplate. My results are always good and I prefer to put my efforts into things that are NOT working for me. Here we are about 4 hours after I made the starter and it’s already active. I’m not sure I have ever seen a package of yeast that doesn’t have a nutrient pack start this quickly. Factor in that the yeast has been around awhile.
Drew had the same attitude about continuing to use his stir plate. After me touting SNS for a few tears, he finally decided he’d at least give it a try. No more stir plate.
For me switching to SNS starters was a matter of simplifying. When I read about the Shaken Not Stirred method I shouted Hallelujah! My brew day doesn’t have to begin two days before I actually start brewing - and having put a starter on the stir plate doesn’t commit me to brewing if something comes up in the interim. But you brew the way you like to brew not how others tell you you should brew.
I have no doubt that the SNS is good (better, I’m sure) and I have no doubt that everything we have heard about stirplates not being necessary and how flasks are not great vessels for starters is also true. The part where I make a lager yeast starter (especially from a package without a nutrient pack) two days prior to brewing is a good point but it doesn’t bother me to make the starter ahead of time and brew on the weekend. I work at home, my kids are grown and my schedule is not as nutty as most others (or my own schedule when my kids were younger). So I don’t necessarily mind that part. I tend to look at new ideas when I really need help with something and getting yeast active in 4 hours seems like it’s working well enough.
I mostly use SNS these days, but still make a conventional starter if the yeast is old and I’m not sure about its health. I make stir plate starters a week or two ahead of time and refrigerate and decant them. That way if the yeast are dead I have time to get a replacement. Making the starter doesn’t commit me to any particular brew day, and it actually makes brew day simpler because I don’t have to start the day before with an SNS starter. I just take the decanted yeast out of the fridge at the start of brew day.
The thing that really sold me on SNS was that I don’t have to oxygenate the wort when pitching the yeast.
i think everyone has their own system, and there are enough around that there will always be someone who disagrees with you.
im in the rehydrate dry yeast camp, from my perceptions… won’t get into that here, but thats an example. apparently im wrong :shrug:
I think yeast are a lot more hardy and forgiving than we imagine. Yeast wants to eat sugary liquid and turn it into beer, and has been doing so for a long time.
i would agree fully, but also i feel like different yeast’s “vigour” levels can be very different. i wish there was a more systematic description of yeasts that really need a very healthy, relatively big starter compared to those you can just dump the commercial yeast package directly into 5 gallons of wort.
I will come forward and admit I don’t really truly even know what SNS is. I guess I always thought it was just occasional swirling while the yeast grows after initial vigorous shaking – which has been a common practice for as long as I can remember making starters.
I also don’t bother making starters on stir plates any longer and it has been several years since I have bothered.
I just make a simple starter out of a 2 quart mason jar. Sometimes I give it a little shot of pure o2 at the beginning. Then I make a low gravity beer from that.
More often than that I will often make a small batch of beer (1-2 gallons) and use the slurry from that as the “starter” and drink the beer I made without ever making a “true” starter.
Lately I have been exclusively been making 4-5 L batches so haven’t even bothered considering a starter. But obviously a 1 gallon batch of beer will give you plenty of yeast for a 5 or 10 G batch
Whatever you use to make good beer, as long as you are considering your yeast and not just pitching it in as an afterthought, you are doing good.
You’re not wrong. You’re simply spending time doing something you don’t need to do. But it’s your choice.
I agree there are many ways to grow up yeast needed for a batch.
My SNS method is to make a 1L starter, pour that in a 1 gallon mayonnaise jar, put the lid on tight, shake vigorously for about 2 minutes (I get tired), then crack the lid and wait to pitch 8-12 hours later. I pitch the whole starter.
I add 100g of DME to my recipe in BeerSmith and I have set my water calculator to expect a 1L top off (the starter volume). Those additions to the recipe help me hit my numbers.
It’s funny because as I was preparing the starter, I read the instructions on the back of the Omega pack (and this has always appalled me, btw)… it basically says to take the pack out of the fridge 3 hours prior to pitching, shake it and pitch it into 5 gallons of wort. Now I have done that with fresh ale yeast from a Wyeast pack that has swollen hard and the ale is only 4.5 to 5% but I would never pitch lager yeast from the pack (with no nutrient pack) directly into 5 gallons of lager wort, no sir. This is how I qualify that my stirplate starter was at least better than THAT! 
Is this for a 5 gallon batch? I’ve been doing 250g DME in ~1.5 litres water and adding a WLP yeast tube. Then pitching after 3 or 4 days. I’m not always happy with the results. Any thoughts? Should I be pitching sooner?
im planning on using some Omega yeast in the future. Do the direct pitches work well with them? ie. no starter
IME, no. The Omega packets do not have the nutrient bubble like Wyeast does so I feel compelled to make a starter for them whether it’s ale or lager. I had a fresh pack of their West Coast Ale strain and figured I could bypass the starter. I made the wort, pitched and did not have a quick start. The fermentation was slow and sluggish and the beer was cloudy and funky. It was not a good experience. If I have White Labs or Omega I make starters for both ale and lager strains. Same for Wyeast lager strains. If I smack a pack of Wyeast ale yeast and I get good expansion on the pack and the date on the pack is recent, I will pitch that into 5 gallons of ale wort with good results.
My dirty secret…I decided that any starter was too much hassle so I’m pitching multiple packs of yeast these days. Great results, dead easy.
I’ve been doing the same (for ales anyway, where two Wyeast packs is usually plenty of yeast). I rarely brew lagers these days, but I will make appropriately sized starters for those.
When I do make starters, I prefer to let them ferment out completely, decant the liquid, and just pitch the slurry (it works better with my schedule).
I’ve tried making smaller starters and pitching the whole thing at high krausen (after reading all of Mark’s posts through the years on why this is beneficial), and that also works well. I think it’s just a matter of personal preference and nothing to get too hung up about.
That’s a pretty high gravity for a starter isn’t it? I think something around 1.040 is more standard, but I can’t say from personal experience whether it will make a difference.
Regarding pitching sooner, the old method was to let the starter ferment out completely, and then pitch just the slurry. The newer method is to make a smaller starter and pitch the entire thing at high krausen. Having tried both, I think they both work well. You may get less lag time with the high krausen method.
This is why I started using more dry yeast. Starters are just the bane of my existence.
250g of DME is about 8 ounces, right? And FTC used 1.5 liters? I also do 1.5 liters but only use 5.2 ounces which I believe is right around 1.040.
EDIT: Looks like 1.5 liters plus 5.2 ounces is 1.035. Fred’s 8 ounces in 1.5 liters is 1.055.
I make small batches of low abv lagers and step up with doubling of batch size sequentially, in lieu of starters, quite regularly. Then serially repitch part of the slurry going forward. I will use multiple dry yeast packs on occasion, too and repitch slurry from those.