The stress of buying liquid yeasts

[TheOsprey]

I've stayed away from buying liquid yeasts, as getting a packet of dried yeast always seemed far easier than piddling around with making starters, using conical flasks and alchemy.

But I'm now trying to make a few beers using GEB's new saveable custom kit builder (finally!) and the beers I'm making all use Wyeast liquid yeasts, so I figured I'd take the plunge.

But then I looked up Wyeast's 'how to store' tips, which says store at 1°, store under 3ml of low alcohol beer, store next to the sphincter of a unicorn on a full moon...

Is it as complicated as it sounds? I want to buy a few kits at once to reduce shipping, but I don't have the capability to store my yeast at 1°.

 

[BlackRegent]

I don't find it difficult, but it requires some discipline. It's also easier if you use brewing software like Brewfather which calculates starter sizes based on pitching rates for the style and gravity of the wort and also the amount you want to overbuild the starter.

You also need some jam jars. The Aldi specially selected jams are especially good as the jars are bomb proof.

My process is as follows:

- Use Brewfather to calculate starter size. I always overbuild the starter by 100 Billion cells as this is the amount I want to reserve (give or take - it is a bit of an overestimation)

- 2 days before brew day, prepare starter wort to the recommended volume in a borosilicate erlenmeyer (so you can boil directly on the stove). It's 100g of DME per litre of water. Boil for 10 mins and cool to pitching temp (room temp is fine for everything). If you have a borosilicate flask, you can plunge it straight into cold water to cool as it won't break. Cover the neck of the flask loosely with tin foil.

- Once cooled, pitch the yeast and place the flask on a stir plate (there has been some controversy on here recently between the shaken v stirred method - my personal view is that I'm going to continue using a stir plate).

- Leave for fermentation to start. There is a difference of opinion on whether you should allow the yeast to ferment out and drop or whether you should time the starter so that its high krausen coincides with the time you want to pitch it in the brew. I do the latter, so after c 36 hours on the stir plate I take it off.

- Before refrigerating and while the yeast is still in full suspension, I pour off an amount to fill up a sanitised jam jar. I then pop the jar in the fridge and leave the lid loose for the first few days whilst it finishes fermenting. I then screw it on tighter.

- I place the rest of the starter to cold crash for c 6-12 hours to allow the yeast to drop. When it is time to pitch into the brew, I remove and pour off all but the last inch or two or wort (fairly easy to do in an erlenmeyer without losing the yeast so long as it has settled to the bottom). I then give it a swirl to mix it up and pitch.

- When I need to use that yeast again, I repeat the above process, only I use the reserved yeast from the jar in the fridge (again pouring off most of the wort), rather than buying a new packet.

 

[Galena]

You need to keep it refrigerated, I don't think 1 degree is that critical, I think mine is at 4C and have just restarted from an 8 month old starter

 

[Galena]

This is pretty much how I do it, only I use Homebrew Dads yeast starter calculator, and overbuild by 100bn cells and then put that in a 500ml mason jar full to the brim for next time.