2 Tone Yeast starter

[beer taster]

I brewed over the weekend using Nottingham yeast but had an issue with the starter.
I hydrated the yeast in 100ml of warm water then 15 mins later added approx 250ml of cooled wort. The resulting liquid was initially a milky colour, (which normally happens when I use Nottingham) but after a short while the liquid seem to separate.
Can anyone explain why my yeast starter looked like this :wha: ?

 

[phettebs]

Honestly, that looks like mine do when they are fermented out and the yeast settles after a day or two.

How long is the "short" while before this happened? It looks like a good active krausen head on top. What temp was the wort at when you pitched the yeast?

I've never seen that happen quickly on my starters. Then again, I shake them up every time I walk by them. :-)

 

[beer taster]

How long is the "short" while before this happened? It looks like a good active krausen head on top. What temp was the wort at when you pitched the yeast?

I was shaking the starter every time i walked by, but I left it for approx 15-30mins and it ended up as in the picture, it was left at room temp approx 19 degrees.

 

[phettebs]

Is the Nottingham you're using dried yeast?

 

[Aleman]

I think this is a perfect example of why you don't make a starter with dried yeast.

Basically you have rehydrated your yeast, and you have enough hungry yeast (Around 20 billion cells in a 11g pack IIRC) that are capable of fermenting 20L (20000ml) of wort, which you then add to 250ml of wort, and encourage them to get at it by shaking and keeping the 20 billion hungry yeast cells in suspension. . . . They did what you asked and chewed up all the fermentable sugar . . . then because there was no more they started to go dormant . . . because there wasn't enough CO2 produced in the extremely short fermentation then they didn't remain in suspension but settled out.

With Dry yeast . . . Rehydrate . . . Pitch . . . don't bother with a starter unless it is around 20L in size!!

 

[phettebs]

Thanks Aleman, that's exactly where I was going with the question. Dried yeast is made to be pitched directly into your FV. Making a starter is actually detrimental to the process ask Aleman said. Save yourself some time and potentially poor fermentation and just pitch the yeast dry.