Stepping up and pitching yeast starters

[billybushcook]

It is a better practice to leave the yeast covered with brew!

Or cooled boiled water if it will be some time before use.

Mick.

[squirt in the turns]

Thanks for all your feedback, folks.

It is a better practice to leave the yeast covered with brew!

Or cooled boiled water if it will be some time before use.

Mick.

At the time I did think I was about to pitch it, but I checked a couple of pitching rate calculators and it didn't quite look like enough (sorry speedie, just couldn't bring myself to chance it), so I fed it another 2L of weak wort. It was sitting in the fridge covered with nothing but cling film while I made and chilled the wort - will try not to do that again! I chilled it again after 2 days (on Mon night) and siphoned off most of the beer and pitched it Tue morning (today). It's fermenting quite vigorously at 18c right now and looking and smelling normal, so I'm pretty happy.

It's good that we had some healthy debate regarding the temperature changes, pouring off, etc. This starter was chilled 3 times (each step up), and didn't seem to suffer for it.

[speedie]

Driving along yesterday thinking about boiled chilled water on your yeast bed and thought that there could be a slight possibility of an infection from the water if not handled correctly as opposed to clean unaffected old brew on the yeast?
Only me thinking
Good night all!

[bullfrog]

It's a widely used way of storing yeast and actually keeps yeast for longer than if it were cultured on slants. Let's go back to when you were told to only speak on things that you knew about, Speedie.

[Bum]

Driving along yesterday thinking about boiled chilled water on your yeast bed and thought that there could be a slight possibility of an infection from the water if not handled correctly as opposed to clean unaffected old brew on the yeast?

There is the opportunity for any starter to become infected if not handled correctly. What a stupid argument. Just goes to show how you'll clutch at straws to undermine anything that is different to how you do it.

[squirt in the turns]

Does top-cropped yeast need to be washed in the same way as you'd wash a sample from the yeast cake, before storing under water? I know it's been said that the krausen is pretty much all yeast.

Also, when stepping up lager yeast starters, I can't see a way around having to pour off a 5L starter. If you wanted to pitch at the height of the starter's fermentation, wouldn't you need to build 5L of weak wort into your recipe? A bit of a PITA, especially for AG brews.

So, how well would the following procedure work? Step up from a smack pack twice (in my case up to 2L in a conical flask), then transfer to 5L starter in the fermenter. Wait for it to ferment out, chash chill, pour off the 5L through the tap and pitch the batch directly onto the yeast cake in the fermenter.