WYeast starter no activity (Wyeast Urquell 2001)

[timtoos]

Hi guys,

Last night (4/8/16) I made a yeast starter for a Czech pils I am planning using the wyeast urquell 2001 yeast. The OG of the pils will be 1048.

The yeast was stored in my fridge and it was mfg on 7/6/16 - getting nearly 2 months old :-(

Using a yeast pitch calculator I made up a 1.7L starter with OG of 1049.
Before the yeast was pitched it was removed from the fridge and smacked a good 3 to 4 hours before pitching.

It was pitched into the wort at a temperature of 23.2C.

Its sat on a stir plate and the temperature is around 20C. Its now 14 hours later and there is no sign of activity at all. Usually I see a krausen building/built and thats my sign that everything's well.

Would you expect to see some activity yet or do you think the yeast maybe a little too old to be worth using?

Cheers all

 

[Grizzly299]

I had exactly this problem with a white labs WLP400 that was 3 months out of date. I wrote it off after a 30 hours or so. Then to my surprise 48 hours later it had kicked off, smelled like Belgian yeast to me, nice and spicy, so it wasn't an infection.

Once it kicked off it was very vigorous. Unfortunately I had already committed to Mangrove Jacks M21 by that point.

If it's old try stepping it up more slowly next time in less liquid and in a weaker sugar concentration perhaps?

In the mean time keep it and see what happens.It may have life in it yet.

 

[strange-steve]

Hi guys,

Last night (4/8/16) I made a yeast starter for a Czech pils I am planning using the wyeast urquell 2001 yeast. The OG of the pils will be 1048.

The yeast was stored in my fridge and it was mfg on 7/6/16 - getting nearly 2 months old :-(

Using a yeast pitch calculator I made up a 1.7L starter with OG of 1049.
Before the yeast was pitched it was removed from the fridge and smacked a good 3 to 4 hours before pitching.

It was pitched into the wort at a temperature of 23.2C.

Its sat on a stir plate and the temperature is around 20C. Its now 14 hours later and there is no sign of activity at all. Usually I see a krausen building/built and thats my sign that everything's well.

Would you expect to see some activity yet or do you think the yeast maybe a little too old to be worth using?

Cheers all

For a lager you want to double the normal pitch rate. You don't say what size batch you're making but for 20 litres you should be looking for about 350b cells. Since you've already done a 1.7L starter, what I would do is chill and decant into another 1.2L starter. This will give you a proper pitch rate and it'll give more time to see if there's any activity.

Two months isn't that old, as long as it was stored ok. It's not unusual for a starter to look a bit lifeless, I wouldn't worry about using it. I've used 6 months old wyeast with a 1 litre starter and it's been fine.

 

[timtoos]

Hi guys,

Thanks for your replies. I think the yeast is done for. Im not sure its a good idea but I have measured the gravity of the wort and its still the same - still at 1049 after 19 hours - So no movement at all.

Regards the lager pitching rate. I used brewers friend pitch calculator - I entered the yeast date and then set as pro lager (1.5) (ale is 0.75 so thats double the cell count) and as the brew is relatively low og at 1048 I thought that would be a good setting.

The brewers calc then spat out the following, which I followed:


What do you guys think? Id say the yeast is done for.

Cheers

 

[DoctorMick]

Isn't 1.049 pretty high for a starter? Not that it should have struggled to ferment it mind.

 

[timtoos]

Yeah probably - but I struggle with flasks to make them up in - 2L is my absolute max (which is what was planned but boiled off to 1.7L).
I didn't want to do multi step starters so thought Id give it a shot at higher gravity wort.
Like you said, I would've thought it would have ploughed through it and fermented it away though.

 

[strange-steve]

Regards the lager pitching rate. I used brewers friend pitch calculator - I entered the yeast date and then set as pro lager (1.5) (ale is 0.75 so thats double the cell count) and as the brew is relatively low og at 1048 I thought that would be a good setting.

Actually you have raised an interesting point here regarding growth rates. I always use the Mr Malty calculator which uses the same formula as the Chris White settings on that calculator you used. There's a big discrepancy between the Braukaiser model and the C. White model even though both are supposedly based on empirical data

 

[timtoos]

Is the C. White model the preferred choice?

 

[strange-steve]

Is the C. White model the preferred choice?

No, opinion is very much divided on the matter. Chris White is the founder of Whitelabs which is good enough for me, however lots of people including Kai Troester have found White's model to be too conservative.

 

[timtoos]

I checked the starter gravity this afternoon and it was the same as when I started off this starter. So I have decided that the yeast is done for and dumped it.
I did expect liquid yeast to be more viable after 55 days. (I know it was quite a high OG for a starter). Other liquid yeasts I have used definitely seemed more hardy than this urquell type.
How old is yeast what you guys use?

 

[DoctorMick]

Last one I used was 6 weeks old, I tend to use within two weeks of delivery so t rarely goes over 4 weeks.