Liquid Yeast - First timer using starter - toss the spent wort?

[baggybill]

Brew day tomorrow, planning a (M)Oktoberfest (Brülosophy) for Xmas. WLP029 in a standard 1.040 2L starter since Wednesday at 23', shaken not stirred (no Bond jokes please :nono:). Now...

I've read that the 2L starter doubles the vials yeast count up from 100b to ~200b but I've also read recently that the best cells will still be active and in suspension. I read recently that I shouldn't pitch a starter of no more than 5% of the brew volume (19-20L) so I need to lose a litre.

Question is, would it be better to:

Carefully decant a litre of spent wort, pitch the remainder or...

Swirl up the whole lot, pitch half and save half in two 500ml bottles for later use.
​

My confusion is, if I half it, I'm back to ~100b cells i.e same as the original vial! Albeit, they will be fully awake and active :wha:

Boy, gimme a packet of Saf 05 any day..... <sigh>

PS Yes, I read toooo much

 

[MyQul]

The reason for the 'don't pitch any more than 5% of the total volume' rule is so the starter doesn't impart any unusaul/off flavours to the beer. Have a taste of the starter wort and if it doesn't taste funky you could risk it and pitch the lot into your wort.
or
wait a few days for brewday while you crash the yeast out of suspension/the starter wort. Then decant most of the starter wort off the crashed yeast

 

[mike77]

I think either of your options will work. You've got good active yeast going so it will take.

Third option is to pitch one complete starter and decant and pitch the sediment from the second. That way you'll get the suspended yeast from one and keep it down to a litre of liquid

 

[baggybill]

Can't wait, last day off for two weeks <sigh>

Ended up crashing it overnight, letting it come back up to room temperature while brewing, carefully decanting a litre of spent wort, swirling up the remainder + sediment and pitching at 18'

I've kept the decanted wort in a sanitised 1L bottle, which is back in the fridge (just as an experiment). Will be interesting to see if anything settles out of it in a weeks time.

 

[MyQul]

I think you've done the right thing. I think they'll be enough yeast in the crashed out pitched 'remainder'

If anything does settle out of the decanted 1L you could always grow it a bit by putting it in some fresh wort for a future brew

 

[BeerCat]

Baggy i notice you have lots of trub in your FV. Just done a lager and ended up throwing about 6l away. Now wondering if it would of compacted and i should of left it?
Gonna try some liquid yeast soon so this is all very interesting. :)

 

[baggybill]

It's only been in the fv about 10-15 mins. I normally leave them 14 days in the primary and it settles right down so I only lose 2-3 litres, leaving me 19L for a corny :grin:

Still a pain though and I wish I could filter this stuff out. From videos I've watched, it looks like the way to do this is to use leaf hop (no pellets) and have a manifold on the tap <--- which I don't have, at the moment. The leaf filters out the trub...

 

[baggybill]

Checked it this morning at 7:00am (~12 hours) and it's gone off like a rocket :grin:

Thick head of foam, major lava lamp action going on inside, guess the wee yeasties are happy with their new home :thumb:

 

[BeerCat]

Cheers Baggy i thought i had replied. What sort of manifold would you use? Been using muslin bags but they are a right pita to clean and empty. If i don't i end up with a clogged tap pretty much immediately. Next time i brew wont discard so much.
Glad to hear your yeast is going well.