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Yeast Starter

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  • 11-03-2017 4:09pm
    #1
    aaronm13
    Registered Users Posts: 1,146 ✭✭✭


    Made my first yeast starter and am worried by the smell. It smells kinda of cider. I made the starter on Wednesday night. I don't have a stir plate yet so just momentarily swirled it at room temperature till last night where I stuck it in the fridge to cold crash. I used White Labs 001. Is this smell normal or have I got an infection. When swirling it I was getting a lovely malty smell but as soon as I took the tin foil off the flask I could get the off smell.


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    #2
    stecleary
    Registered Users Posts: 1,114 ✭✭✭stecleary


    why did you cold crash it? you've just woken all the yeast up and sent it back to bed.


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    #3
    aaronm13
    Registered Users Posts: 1,146 ✭✭✭aaronm13


    A few guides I saw said to do this to get through yeast to settle and decant off most of the liquid. Was this wrong to do?


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    #4
    Knifey Spoony
    Registered Users Posts: 1,557 ✭✭✭Knifey Spoony


    aaronm13 wrote: »
    A few guides I saw said to do this to get through yeast to settle and decant off most of the liquid. Was this wrong to do?

    You should be fine with the cold crashing, provided you let the yeast come back up to room temp before pitching. With starters you want to build up the population of yeast before pitching. The point of cold crashing would be to allow your yeast to flocculate (drop out of suspension) so you can decant the starter beer, which does not taste very nice.

    I had a similar starter schedule as you with some WLP005 for an oatmeal stout I did before christmas. Let it ferment for 3 days, occasionally swirling it, cold crashing for 24 hours and then letting it come to room temp while I was brewing. Everything turned out fine in the end.


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    #5
    aaronm13
    Registered Users Posts: 1,146 ✭✭✭aaronm13


    Knifey Spoony wrote: »
    You should be fine with the cold crashing, provided you let the yeast come back up to room temp before pitching. With starters you want to build up the population of yeast before pitching. The point of cold crashing would be to allow your yeast to flocculate (drop out of suspension) so you can decant the starter beer, which does not taste very nice.

    I had a similar starter schedule as you with some WLP005 for an oatmeal stout I did before christmas. Let it ferment for 3 days, occasionally swirling it, cold crashing for 24 hours and then letting it come to room temp while I was brewing. Everything turned out fine in the end.

    I let it come to room temperature alright. Took it out of the fridge when I started brewing so was out maybe 5 hours before pitching. I cold crashed for the same reason as you as I did the want to put the beer starter in.

    So what's the general consensus on starters and cold crashing? Would putting the whole starter beer without cold crashing alter the overall taste of the beer?


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    #6
    Knifey Spoony
    Registered Users Posts: 1,557 ✭✭✭Knifey Spoony


    aaronm13 wrote: »
    So what's the general consensus on starters and cold crashing? Would putting the whole starter beer without cold crashing alter the overall taste of the beer?

    No idea about how it would alter the taste. Depends on the size of the starter and what style of beer you are pitching it to.

    I have it in my head that you should cold crash and decant the starter if it is above 10% of the volume of the batch you are pitching it to. But, I can't remember where I got that number from, possibly some thread of homebrew talk.


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    #7
    aaronm13
    Registered Users Posts: 1,146 ✭✭✭aaronm13


    Knifey Spoony wrote: »
    No idea about how it would alter the taste. Depends on the size of the starter and what style of beer you are pitching it to.

    I have it in my head that you should cold crash and decant the starter if it is above 10% of the volume of the batch you are pitching it to. But, I can't remember where I got that number from, possibly some thread of homebrew talk.

    I've been looking around all week and am even more confused. Opinions are really 50-50. I've just done another starter this evening so might try not cold crashing it to see if it has that cider type smell. Hoping to do 19l DIPA at the weekend. My starter is 1.6l so I might just throw it all in and see what happens.


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