A litre of Star San in my yeast starter! (Help!)

[morethanworts]

Aaarrggghhh!!!!

This is one of those errors you probably only make once. Last night my 3L starter was happily sat at 8C, clearing down ahead of Sunday's brew. So I dropped it to 4C. I didn't see it this morning, but came back to find this today:

Yep, the starter has swallowed over a litre of pH3 Star San solution out of the blow off bottle, no doubt due to the cold crash pressure change.



I've now siphoned off the clear layer from the top and would like to believe that that was somehow the Star San, but I have no idea how diluted the rest of the starter is with acidic sanitiser, and what effect that may have on the yeast.

At best, I guess someone will tell me the yeast is likely to be OK and it has just been splashed back into suspension much closer to brewday than was ideal. Please advise!

 

[Jimmy321]

According to Dave Miller in 'Brew like a pro' starsan is a stone cold killer for yeast (obv it's OK to use for sanitation in normal conditions).

 

[Maysie]

You are way more experienced than I am, but I would suggest that sounds like a right-off!

The image also induced flashbacks of a long night drinking flaming B52 shots in a bar on Bishopsgate which resulted in me having to go back to the bar the following day to apologise for my behaviour......

 

[joe1002]

:lol: which bar?

 

[morethanworts]

I guess I could get it going again the night before, and see if it takes off as expected... :hmm:

...not an ideal scenario, though. I usually get it going with some cooled wort early in the boil, but I'd want to see good activity before even putting the mash on with this.

 

[Aleman]

It's dead!

Even if you do get it going again, it will be rife with petite mutants, and fermentation will suffer.

You make a starter to build up a population of healthy yeast . . . if they ain't healthy, it ain't going to make great beer

 

[morethanworts]

Galaxy pale with us05 it is then, this Sunday. Bugger. Can't waste the brewing time booked, though.

Won't be making that mistake again. 24hrs ago I had an excellent 3L starter of WY3787 , stepped up from a 0.5L on the stir plate.

 

[Maysie]

:lol: which bar?

It was the Pitcher and Piano when it first opened. Think it was around 1998ish. My housemate worked there for a while, so things got a tad out of hand.
I fell in a hedge of my way home and lost my mobile phone too, so was a pretty expensive night out all told...