you keep threating us with this…lol
I inoculate one of these media bottles with one or more 4mm loop scrapes taken from a slant.
The yeast that is grown in 40 milliliters of absolutely sterile (autoclaved) wort is pitched into 600 milliliters of 10% w/v (1.040) wort. That’s a one to fifteen step media-wise, which is living on the edge when dealing with such a small amount of yeast. A White Labs vial contains almost 35ml of yeast cells. I am pitching at best 1/10th that amount.
i need to see if they have autoclaves on Craigslist
You do not need to purchase a laboratory autoclave. A pressure cooker/canner that is capable of 15 PSI above normal atmospheric pressure will get the job done. You need to be careful when purchasing because many modern pressure cookers/canners are not capable of achieving 15 PSI above normal atmospheric pressure pressure. All of the “All American” pressure cookers/canners are capable of achieving this pressure level. A few of the lower-priced pressure cookers are capable of achieving 15 PSI above normal atmospheric pressure as well.
This has been sitting at 66 since Sunday night, I have to leave town Fri-Mon, would there be any benefit it raising the temp up to 70ish while I am out of town
If you want to raise the temperature, go ahead and do it. I am a “steady state” brewer when it comes to ale. However, then again, I brew mostly British-style ale when I brew ale.
On my 3rd set of starters using the “James Bond” method.
At some point a detailed write up should be a sticky.
here is my 1056 at 10 hours!
I know this is an older thread but i have been trying to get a cleaner and less phenolic character from Wyeast 3068 and have been fermenting at 62F with a suggested starter from one the yeast cal. Wondering if i would get a “cleaner” profile from this strain if i pitched at high krausen? Interesting for sure maybe i will try it.
best way to find out is to try!
I think hefe phenolics have more to do with pitch rate than pitching at peak activity… unless the transition from being pitched at high krausen also causes less stress - that indeed may be beneficial. I think wyeast recommends over-pitching to cut down on banana. Ensuring it is well aerated/oxygenated may also limit ester production and if you can ferment under more pressure, that would likely help as well.
I’m going to try this (with oxygen instead of shake n’ bake) tomorrow for a beer I’m hoping to brew Sunday and have a couple of questions.
How many seconds of pure O2 with a 2 micron stone into 1 liter?
How do you know when you’re completely at high krausen without going past it? Is it better to crash a little sooner or a little later?
On brew day, should I decant and then let the slurry warm up prior to pitching? Or take out of fridge, decant, and pitch still cold? (In the past, I’ve always done the latter but not sure it’s correct.)
Thanks for any comments!
Edit: actually my stone might be 0.5 micron – I can’t remember. It’s stainless on a wand. I got it at Williams several years ago, but they no longer have a record of the transaction in my account. Don’t know if it matters for the bubbling time? In 5.5 gallons I always bubble for 45 to 60 seconds.
One problem pitching cold can be getting the yeast off the bottom of your container, certain strains are harder than others. I let it warm up a bit first. Don’t stress about crashing right at high krausen, if it goes over IME you’ll be just fine. There are many people let their yeast sit on a stir plate for days (I’m not recommending) and make good beer - decanting the starter becomes more important though.
As for your o2 time, mathematically it is around 3 seconds per liter. I did mine for 10. No worries. You’ll still want to shake the hell out of it.
Thanks!
I picked up a pack of Denny’s 50 this morning with a June 25 manufacture date. Smacked it about noon. Pitched into the starter at 2pm. It started bubbling around 5:30 and is getting more frequent now. No krausen yet, but I can tell it’s close to forming.
Edit: times are EST.
Well it’s been almost 11 hours and I never got a krausen, but it seems to obviously be past peak and yeast is starting to settle out on the bottom so I think I’m going to crash it now.
Not quite 5 hours after pitching this starter in my wort and I’m seeing the first signs of take off!
Edit: Full blast off with 2" krausen in sometime less than 13 hours. (Not sure exactly when because I was sleeping.)
Maybe shake the 1g jugs before adding yeast