Pages: 1 2
YEAST: the power and the glory
On my last batch, I used a stir plate for my starter (first time i've done this), and I used Servomyces White labs yeast nutrient. Wow, am I impressed with the results. My favorite yeast is Wlp005, and I always have a problem with it on the first gen keeping it from flocculating to soon, I end up having to swirl it around to finish up. A few times i've banged in S-04 dry yeast to get it to finish, it's been that big a pain in the ass for me. This time it finished in 5 days? Wow, 5 days instead of around 14days. I'm still going to leave it a few days to clean up, but god damn what a difference.
The only problem is that I don't know what the reason was for the great fermentation, was it the stir plate, or the yeast nutrient. I've used other Nutrients before, but never with results like these. Not that it matters i'm going to be using the stir plate for all batches now. I left it on the plate for 2 days, and had fermentation in 4 hours, pretty damn impressive. In the overall picture, I don't think we as brewers talk about yeast enough. We either keep our secrets to ourselves, or just expect everyone does the same thing. Pitching great healthy and adequate yeast is the best thing that you can do to make a great beer.
In your example, I'd bet your results were a mixed bag of the two new changes to your yeast prep step.
However, I'd feel confident saying that more that 50% of the improvement was the stir plate.
I have been meaning to use some of that servo-nutrient stuff, just haven't yet. But I always use a stir plate and get great results.
And yes, for all the talk we do about this ingredient over that ingredient in a recipe...great beer really is a function of yeast. Moreover, its not so much the choice of yeast, but the management of your fermentation.
From providing the right amount f the healthiest yeast possible to maintaining optimal fermentation temperatures through out the ferment. These things are really what seperate drinkable beer from good beer and stellar beer.
When I started brewing I did alot of reading, looking back I dont' think any book talked about it enough. Seriously, look through your brewing books, it should be page 1 chapter 1. Make sure you have the best freaking yeast you can possibly get. They should tell you this right off the bat, and how to get there. Use ample quantity of yeast, watch your fermentation temps like a hawk, and use a god damn stir plate.
Seriously I've been brewing pretty regular, and i've come from store bought Mr. beer kits to a 10 gallon all grain system in 3 years, and I just started making starters last year? why? because alot of books, hell even right on the yeast it tells you only if your beer is over 1.060 do you need to make a starter. Very few of my beers go above this. (apparently i'm bizzaro Thirsty). It's not wrong information, it's just not correct information. When Thirsty told me he made gallon starters I really thought he was off his f$%^ing rocker, why? Because everything I read said nothing about starters that large, and all of the brewing people wouldn't leave out somthing that important right?
Hell even you brewchez, you told me you had a stirplate, but you didn't tell me you used it every time you brew? You didn't grab me by the shoulders and say, hey get a stirplate it's really the way to go man. You and 1n1m3g would be playing slap ass in the corner talking about yeast this, and yeast that, but you never shared it with me?
Yea, that's right i'm blaming everyone who ever showed me how to brew, but i'm on to you, i'm on to all of you now. Ha ha kidding
but seriosly watch your yeast man, your beer will thank you for it.
bruguru wrote:
Hell even you brewchez, you told me you had a stirplate, but you didn't tell me you used it every time you brew? You didn't grab me by the shoulders and say, hey get a stirplate it's really the way to go man. You and 1n1m3g would be playing slap ass in the corner talking about yeast this, and yeast that, but you never shared it with me?
Yea, that's right i'm blaming everyone who ever showed me how to brew, but i'm on to you, i'm on to all of you now. Ha ha kidding
This is my favorite website in the world.
I am scared to think what your beers are going to taste like now. Next time I have one of your beers I'll probably just stop brewing it'll be so good.
The only saving grace I have over you is that I have TWO stir plates!
bruguru wrote:
When Thirsty told me he made gallon starters I really thought he was off his f$%^ing rocker, why? Because everything I read said nothing about starters that large, and all of the brewing people wouldn't leave out somthing that important right?
You and 1n1m3g would be playing slap ass in the corner talking about yeast this, and yeast that, but you never shared it with me?
.
That reminds me, tonight I have to boil up 3#s of DME for my 3 gallon starter! Seriously, 12 gallons of dopplebock going on WLP833 friday, need those jugs to be rippin by then.
BG, didnt you ever notice that when you would meander on over to try and join their yeast conversations, you would hear things like "how about them redsox huh? I think Varitek is going to have a great year this year!" Do you really think they were talking about the sox? They just know your kryptonite!
1n1m3g is full of all kinds of fancy yeast secrets, he'll be glad to tell you about them, the only problem is it is impossible to understand what the hell he is talking about! I mean seriously dude, who counts things out in moles?
brewchez wrote:
bruguru wrote:
Hell even you brewchez, you told me you had a stirplate, but you didn't tell me you used it every time you brew? You didn't grab me by the shoulders and say, hey get a stirplate it's really the way to go man. You and 1n1m3g would be playing slap ass in the corner talking about yeast this, and yeast that, but you never shared it with me?
Yea, that's right i'm blaming everyone who ever showed me how to brew, but i'm on to you, i'm on to all of you now. Ha ha kiddingThis is my favorite website in the world.
I am scared to think what your beers are going to taste like now. Next time I have one of your beers I'll probably just stop brewing it'll be so good.
The only saving grace I have over you is that I have TWO stir plates!
LOL. Do I sense a sales pitch coming????
DC
Three gallon starter Thirsty? Do you do a starter for your starter's starter? You may need to borrow both of Brewchez' stir plates. Oh, wait. Two was this morning. He probably has three by now.
Crabnut wrote:
Three gallon starter Thirsty? Do you do a starter for your starter's starter? .
I actually planned on doing a 2 step starter for this one, but forgot about it last night. I am tossed up about doing it now, not sure if I have enough time. I was going to do 1 gallon split into 2 jugs, then the next day decant off, split into 4 jugs, and add a 1/2 gallon to each. I still might do that. I have 2 vials to pitch, so I want to make it big and healthy! Or I will just put 3/4 gallon into each jug and split the vials.
Yeah, I can't figure out why it says right on the white labs tubes and the wyeast activatore that its enough yeast. For the longest time I figured they had to be right, and didnt know why everyone was talking about starters. Now I do a starter if I'm using liquid yeast, but I've only got a 3 liter bottle to do them in, and no stir plate.
seriously the yeast companies should either increase the yeast count in the packs or just tell you to make a starter.
Hogarthe wrote:
Yeah, I can't figure out why it says right on the white labs tubes and the wyeast activatore that its enough yeast. For the longest time I figured they had to be right, and didnt know why everyone was talking about starters. Now I do a starter if I'm using liquid yeast, but I've only got a 3 liter bottle to do them in, and no stir plate.
seriously the yeast companies should either increase the yeast count in the packs or just tell you to make a starter.
Well lets be fair.
It is enough yeast to make beer. Its enough yeast to make good beer. Most of us got started just pitching a vial or a smack pack, and we thought our beers were pretty good.
When we make a starter, sure the beer definately improves. In some cases significantly so.
The thing to keep in mind here is that you need to keep it simple enough for the lowest common denominator. No one HAS to make a starter to make good beer. Once you get into the hobby and start thinking about making better beer that's when the starter gets important.
I am sure there is some economic ration of #yeast cells/dollar that still makes a good enough beer that people come back for more. Could they double the amount of yeast in these vials and packs? Sure, but you know what that yeast would have been dormant anyway, and you'd STILL want a starter to wake it up.
In fact, most starters don't really increase the cell count significantly, but they do up the viability (live #s) of the cells in the culture. If you do what Thirsty is doing you get more cells. Howeve,r pitching a full vial of White Labs into 1L, even 2L, you don't some sort of doubling of growth. Thirsty could just as well pithc 4 vials into a gallon of wort in a bucket, let it go for 8-10hours and get very similar results.
We need to keep these things in perspective.
Maybe 1n1m3g will chime in he really is a better yeast guy than me. I do a lot of cell culture work and microbiology, but I don't work with yeast.
OK, OK, i guess I can try to make some sort of contribution to this discussion here. I think there is a bit of confusion here about the yeast that come in the liquid from the homebrew stores, either smack packs or vials. There are two key terms everyone should be aware of and the differences between the two. One is yeast viability and the other is yeast vitality. Viability is easy to define as it basically describes the overall number of yeast cells that are alive. If you were able to count the cells under a microscope and then plate out a small, countable number of cells onto an agar plate the viability of the yeast would be the number of cells that actually form a colony as compared to the number of cells you plated. Vitality on the other hand is a more ambiguous term that describes the overall health of those viable cells. In brewing terms it could be described as how fast the cells could divide and as well as how efficient they are at fermenting sugars. Cells will have high vitality if they have sufficient fermentation precursors stored up. For example, oxygen is required to build up sufficient cell wall components prior to fermentation because during fermentation (in the absence of oxygen) these cell wall components are not synthesized and are depleted upon every cell division until a lower limit threshold is reached and the cells can no longer divide thereby decreasing fermentation efficiencies. So, even before you pitch your yeast, you can easily have a population of cells with high viability but low vitality if not properly prepared. For example, the older a vial or smack pack is the lower the viability is as well as the vitality, but I think that vitality drops off much faster than viability over time.
So back to the question of starters. Creating a population of cells with high vitality requires that you give the yeast the proper nutrients that prime them for fermentation. I think this is where Wyeast smack packs are superior to White labs yeast vials. When you pop the smack pack you release vital nutrients to the yeast so the somewhat dormant yeast greatly increase their vitality. There is no way to do this for White labs unless you use a starter to wake them up. A starter is useful for both because depending on the starter technique you use you can greatly increase the total number of viable cells while at the same time increase the overall vitality of the entire population. The most important component for the starter is oxygen. Why force the cells to start fermentation in a starter when you are just going to pitch them into an oxygen rich wort, which inhibits fermentation, only to have that oxygen quickly depleted requiring a switch back to fermentation? If you use a stir plate to add oxygen continuously to the starter you can greatly increase the overall numbers of cells in a smaller volume of starter wort. These cells will have built a nice ample store of the cell wall components required for proper attenuation of your beer. If you prefer the more traditional method of a still starter you will be better off if you give the starter a stir twice a day or so to scrub out the built up CO2 and introduce more O2.
I think a better place to add things like yeast nutrient (i.e. Servomyces) would be at pitching or a day or two into the fermentation. The yeast nutrients add things like metal ions required for enzyme function as well as free nitrogen required to synthesize these enzymes. Adding this to the fermenting wort of your beer will give the yeast a boost as they use up the limited nutrients that come from the malt.
I use a stir plate for my starters because I don't use smack packs or vials, but am instead building up my population step by step from literally a single yeast cell. I need the extra oxygen to get to the proper number of viable cells with the added benefit of also getting high vitality. Either way, though, if you are using store bought liquid yeast, make sure the package is as close to the manufactured date as possible and if you have the capability, use a starter of any technique (stir plate of otherwise) to increase cell vitality.
Wow, is that enough of an explanation? Cheers!
Probably the most valuable post on the entire website.
What type of increase in population size do you really get when pitching a vial of White Labs into a typical 1L starter?
Or what may be more valuable an answer, how big of a starter to you need to actually double the cell count of a White Labs vial?
There is confusing information out there about available nutrients and how it limits the amount of growth you can get. I would assume then that if you don't get more than one doubling, or maybe not even on doubling, that the start is at least increasing vitality through oxygen introduction and metablism with fresh nutrients (starter wort).
Thanks 1n1m3g!
Great post. My Thanks as well 1n1m3g!
About 2 years ago I would have read about a third of that post and woke up drooling on my arm with visions of flying yeast cells around my head. Great post that really breaks it down for someone looking for a lot of information in a small concise format. One of the things I love about this hobby is the ability to always take it to the next level and yeast management is vital for many of thes "next levels."
Great post 1n1m3g. I'm sure that you told me that before (actually I don't think you ever broke it down like that). This post would have been really helpful about 3 years ago. Ha ha.
Seriously thanks for the breakdown of what the hell actually goes on during a starter fermentation. This explains why my stir plate starter took off so quickly during actual fermentation.
Now what about actually putting oxygen into the wort? I don't think I saw you do that during the brewday 1n1m3g, I know Thirsty does, but I don't believe brewchez does? So what gives guys? do you not think the wort actually needs added oxygen? Thirsty has noticed significantly better fermentation adding oxygen or he wouldn't be doing it. Although his beers usually have an og of 1.080 or better.
Pages: 1 2
Search Home Brewing Knowledge Base
Custom Search
|