Krausen Not Dropping On The Starter

[rich1985]

Hi All,

So I'm building a yeast starter with WLP001 yeast. I pitched the yeast on Wednesday Morning and we're now on Friday evening and the Krausen hasn't dropped. I'm wondering what to do as I'd like to pitch it tomorrow afternoon and would like to crash it so I can take all the wort of the top of the yeast. Shall I leave it? Take it off the Stirplate?

Any advice would be greatly received!

Thanks

Richard

 

[steve123]

I did similar to use started starter on Wednesday, there was a lot of activity and I was wondering when it would disappear, Thursday night it was still going strong, checked it this morning and the Krausen has disappeared. I would leave it on tonight and see what it’s like in the morning. My yeast seemed to drop pretty quickly and by lunch time seemed to be settled.

How big is your yeast starter and what size wort will you be making. You could just pitch the whole thing in if it hasn’t sorted itself out by the time you brew

 

[rich1985]

Hi Steve,

The starter is 1.4 litres. We will be making 20l of about 1.034 OG beer (a SMASH Idaho Table beer). Worried about off flavours if I pitch it. Isn't that a possibility? Never had krausen for anywhere near this length of time!

 

[Linalmeemow]

Swirl it in and cold crash?

 

[Hoppyland]

Well, I'm not sure that I understand your problem....
It seems to me that you have a very healthy yeast starter - why not just shake it all up to homogenise and then pitch it in the beer? Not a massive volume at 1.4l, so if you are very fussy about your final volume then reduce to accomodate.

 

[rich1985]

I always assumed that you needed to wait till it dropped naturally before pitching. I shaked it in and then crashed. It's now fermenting away nicely!

 

[foxbat]

I always assumed that you needed to wait till it dropped naturally before pitching. I shaked it in and then crashed. It's now fermenting away nicely!

I usually crash and decant the spent wort but I've read that pitching the starter when it's at high krausen will start your main fermentation pretty much immediately.

 

[Hoppyland]

I usually crash and decant the spent wort

Well, I sometimes do this - especially if I'm trying to build up a starter from small beginnings (These days, I don't ever try to recover yeast from a bottle, but I do use yeast slopes a lot).
But, if I've got a decent amount of yeast that I reckon should be vigorous (such as a White Labs liquid sachet) then I tend to build it up in about 1.5 litres of wort and, when it's fermenting very vigorously, pitch it into the main wort. Not very scientific - no attempt at viable cell counts - but it seems to do the trick & minimise the lag phase.