Much of the best information about the method, specifically the “meat and potatoes” of the analytical information, is spread out across 2 or 3 very long, very good threads.
I’ve found myself digging through them the last few days looking for bits and pieces of specific interest.
Do you think you could provide a brief overview (maybe it can become a sticky?) of the concepts of maximum cell density of starter volume, replication time, benefits of the method including yeast vitality, pitching at high krausen, vessel size, etc. and any other pertinent info?
Also to Jim:
Can you provide some insight into your 1LO2HK variation, i.e. process, O2 amounts, etc.
Prepare starter wort in 1/2 gallon canning jars 7.5%-10% w/v 1.030-1.040 with a pinch of nutrients. These are autoclaved in a pressure cooker 15min at 15psi. Stored at room temp.
On the morning of brew day, in a sanitizer vessel at least 2L in size, add 1L starter wort. Oxygenate thru a stainless sintered stone with pure oxygen until the wort foam fill the flask. Pitch yeast. Cover with foil. One 1L starter for up to 1.070 ale, Two 1L starters for lagers. I suspect you could get away with one, but I use two.
Place in fermentation chamber set at appropriate temp. With lager yeast, store jars of wort in fermentation chamber over night at lager pitching temp to avoid yo-yo-ing the temp of the yeast.
Pitch at “high krausen”. Pitch the whole shebang, everything but the flask and foil. What were looking for is getting the yeast well into log phase at least. High krausen can be difficult to detect. So this is what works for me - Pitch ale at 8hrs - Pitch lager at 12 hrs
You’re welcome. The biggest worry I hear is off flavors or dilution by pitching the whole starter. Well, I dont experience that. I just submitted two light lagers to a couple Grand Master judges and neither complained of anything that I see directly connects to my pitching two liters of starter. You can read that on the Rube Goldberg thread. Maybe someone else would extrapolate a comment into blaming the starters, but I dont. And bottom line is, its what I do. I’m not trying to change anyone. In fact, I plan to compete this year so maybe it would be good for me if no one else did it this way for a while LOL.
1.) The off flavor thing seemed to have derived from people pitching a Crap load of Starter wort that was stirred into their beer. This method seems to mitigate that concern.
2.) If you account for the extra volume upfront during recipe creation then dilution shouldn’t be an issue. People who complain about that didn’t plan well enough.
I believe that I posted the entire process in the 26+ page thread. I may do a blog post on the process in the future, but I have no desire to revisit the topic because that thread tested my patience.
I’m willing to bet that a lot of the off flavor concerns come from pitching a large starter that was allowed to finish out and had plenty of chance to oxidize since the yeast had finished up and the starter was allowed unfettered access to oxygen. By pitching at high krausen, the yeast are still plenty active and oxygen pickup/oxidation of the starter wort isn’t a concern.
Totally. I can see a valid dilution concern though, to be open minded about it. Especially in very delicate beers like I’ve been dealing with in the Rube Goldberg thread. Its not easy to get pils malt to “showcase” in a sub 1.050 beer to begin with let alone after adding 2L of 1.030 DME wort/beer. In my next go around I’m taking a step of faith and only pitching one 1LO2HK starter per 6 gal just to see what happens. But in a bigger bolder lager, I trust the results I’ve seen from pitching two of them.
That’s my concern with lagers. I’ve done SNS on ales of 5-7% and liked it alot, but I’m just not gonna pitch that much starter wort into a lager, for the reasons you mention. My two upcoming lagers are gonna get the old fashioned ‘crash and decant’ method.
I tried that with a lager, the yeast didn’t drop out in the fridge, there was still some Krauesen at the top the nest day, and the starter was cloudy from the yeast. You might have to get closer to freezing to crash some lager yeast.
Yeast are somewhat resistant to flocculation when there are still sugars in solution. I would not be surprised that it takes significant cold to get them to drop at high krauesen.
This works well for me. I take the late mid to tail runnings or on light lagers, just the whole wort as collected and use that as my starter…works great and I don’t rush the pitching this way - I just have to post a note to myself to remember to pitch the yeast (I brew early in the day, so my starter is usually rocking nicely by bedtime.
Exactly. Too many people are making unhopped, oxidized, DME beer on stir plates, as opposed to propagating yeast. If you match your SNS starter wort to the underlying malt character of your recipe (e.g., Extra Light Pilsen DME if the main base malt is Pilsen Malt) and adjust the recipe appropriately, one liter SNS starter pitched at 12-18 hours shouldn’t have a perceptible impact on the beer. I don’t see how it is much different than adjusting a missed OG by adding DME.