Just wondering how you guys do a lager yeast starter differently compared to an Ale starter. Since the lager yeast start slower and take longer?
For an ale starter, I make the starter and let it “ferment” on the stair plate for 18 to 24 hours at room temperature, then put it in the refrigerator for about a day before decanting and pitching.
I know I have to make much more yeast, and will calculate that, but what is your timeline for a lager starter?
I double the time, so I begin earlier.
I do them exactly the same, because I do them at the same (room) temperature, so the lager yeast takes no longer. Temperature, not strain, determines how long a fermentation takes. Volume determines how much you’ll grow at a given temperature. If I need to do two steps, then each step is on an identical schedule. That’s usually 24 hours on the stir plate, 48 hours in the fridge, and decant.
I also do the two types of yeast starters exactly the same way at room temperature. I’ve read that some brewers put their stir plate in the fridge and run it for a couple days when making a Lager starter. I find that to be a bit over the top - but that’s my opinion.
Same here. I use exactly the same SNS starter for normal gravity lagers as I do for normal gravity ales.
Yep. Agree with the above. No need to do them at lager temps there has been a lot of research about this. They shouldn’t take any longer than ale starters.
One of the things I like to do is make a 2 gallon batch on my stove and just pitch the lager yeast in and make beer (at lager temps). The nice thing is you make beer and a starter at the same time.
Yeast will happily reproduce at temperatures higher than what makes good beer so starter temperature for ales or lagers is irrelevant.
I make my starters at the same temp, ale vs lager, in the basement. The lagers starters are stepped, so that I get enough cells. I have seen some lag starting up with some lager yeast’s, so I begin the process earlier. Oh, I’m frugal and use one pack of liquid for 10+ gallons of lager. I could cut the time down by buying more packs, but, I said I’m frugal.
Are you frugal enough to make all-grain starters, or are you willing to pay for DME? I usually use DME, but I ended up with several extra pounds of grain that I didn’t see any upcoming use for, so I did a small BIAB batch and pressure canned 3 liters of wort for use in starters. It was pretty easy and a lot simpler than brewing beer.
For a small starter, DME. For a couple of gallons, malt. Sometimes a 5 gallon starter is used. ;D. That works well when making a big beer.
Like Denny, Wen making a starter, I use the SNS approach, regardless of ale or lager; however I will many times just make a 3 gallon light lager beer and pitch that slurry into a 5 gallon batch and then step up to a ten gallon batch. If making a high gravity lager, I will almost always pitch recently harvested (same day typically) slurry.
Having toured German lager breweries with tubs of harvested yeast waiting to be pitched, I do that too. I have made 5 gallons of Leichtbier (1.032 OG), as the starter for a 10gallon batch.
I still have to try a SNS for a lager. The starter is a big % of the volume for a lager. I might try that for a Helles. Thinking as I type, it would work for the Leichtbier just fine.
I am another one that does lager yeasts exactly the same as ale yeasts although I do not refrigerate and decant. I can cool my lager wort to the low 60’s before pitching the yeast because my well water is cooler than typical city water. That said, I always try to make sure the wort temp is within 10 degrees of the starter temp when I pitch so I don’t shock the yeast. I can cool 10 gallons of lager down to the proper fermentation temperature in a few hours in my walk-in cooler. If the ambient air temperature outside the cooler is really warm, I put he stir plate and the starter in the cooler and grow it up there, but it is still warmer than the low 50’s in temperature when I pitch.
There was something I read a few years back, I think it was from a yeast manufacturer, that said you can pitch lager yeast at basic ale temperatures (65-70 degrees or so) to allow the biomass to grow a bit faster to reduce the lag time, then begin to cool the beer down to fermentation temperatures after pitching with no problems. This has worked well for me in the past.
Only if you subscribe to the notion that a lager takes a larger starter. I haven’t found that to be the case.
That is an interesting point, Denny, one that I have never thought of. I have always used two packs of yeast in a lager starter in the same volume (around 4 liters) of wort and don’t step it up anymore. Now I may have to rethink this.
Goose and Denny,
Some of the conventional wisdom about lager pitching seems to revolve around the idea that the early growth stages of fermentation are where esters are produced. So the idea seems to be, pitch a lot and pitch cold so growth is limited.
But so many around here seem to have no trouble with pitching warmer, or pitching less yeast, and that along with my experiments with pressure fermentation, where the key element comes later in the process, has me questioning this. I wonder if maybe some precursors are produced at the early stage, but low temperature or other factors later on can prevent esterification.
I’m going to leave the pressure fermentation behind for a while (to slow things down so I can try spunding,) and am trying to improve my chilling capacity. But I just may worry less about pitching temperature and pitch rate in light of your experience.
If found a pitch at 45-46F I think it would.
I sat in on the HomebrewCon presentation on 34/70 being pitched and fermented warm. Their optimal pitch rate was 1g/liter, or roughly 2 packs for 5 gallons (19 liters). IIRC, They looked at pitch rate in the study. I’m tempted to pitch 34/70 warm, and ferment warm, following their pitch rate. Maybe split a batch and pitch one pack in one, two packs in the other.
They also pitched dry, which is what I do now.