I read someone suggested doing a vitality starter. I am using a yeast calculator, building my appropriate cell count on a stir plate and pitching. If my starter volume exceeds 5% of the total volume, I crash and decant spent wort before pitching.
Still not sure what a vitality starter is or what its used for?
A vitality starter, from my reading and practice, is a starter that is made on the day of brewing. It takes less wort than a traditional starter and the purported purpose is to pitch the yeast into a smaller starter of well oxygenated wort to allow the yeast to adapt to the new environment and start building the materials they need for rapid reproduction. The yeast uses the oxygen in the wort to make sterols which are used to strengthen the cell walls, an action which is needed for repeated and rapid budding and cell replication. Some sources compare it to ‘proofing’ dry yeast, but it really comes down to the health or vitality of the yeast cells providing enough nutrients to give a healthy fermentation.
In practice, I use both a traditional starter and a vitality starter. I save about 300 cc of wort from the boil, which I use to check the gravity and pitch the appropriate number of yeast cells needed from a traditional starter or a new yeast packet. It usually takes about 4 to 6 hours for that to start showing signs of activity and start building a head of foam on the top. At this point, I pitch it into the carboy, which has been sitting in my fermentation chamber stabilizing to my preferred pitching temperature.
Very helpful. Thanks for the detailed reply. I am thinking this vitality starter may also be helpful when I use a jar of harvested yeast that has been in the fridge.
I started this practice about 6 months ago, although I don’t adjust the wort gravity and just divert part of the runoff to the fermenter to fill a flask along with saved yeast or a crashed and decanted yeast starter (if I was starting fresh). i put that flask in the fermentation fridge next to the main fermentor at whatever my desired temp is. once that starts to hit high krausen, dump into the fermenter and aerate.
I’ve found that my fermentation lag times are much shorter, as are the overall fermentation times - much closer to what my pro friends experience.
On the morning of brew day I put about 1200ml of pre made 1.040 in a sterile flask, oxygenate it, and add my smack pack. At the end of brew day it is starting to produce CO2. I call that active. I pitch the whole thing to 6 gallons of oxygenated wort. It’s the easiest, most reliable method of dealing with yeast that I’ve found yet. Maybe this is a version of what they are calling vitality…
This is pretty much my method as well. ( I use 600-ish ml) For harvested yeast, I have always chickened out and do a day or two starter.