Do have time for a starter?

[SiHoltye]

Just received my vial of WLP-500 Trappist Ale Yeast from White Labs via H&G, via Royal Mail, across this weekend . It's in my fridge now. I want to pitch this into 5 gallons of 1.050 wort on Wedensday this week (at about 1pm to be precise). What's my best option for preparing this yeast for pitching, I've not used liquid before ?

[Jim]

You could make the starter now, but have a back-up dried yeast on standby. Then if the Whitelabs doesn't kick into life soon enough you can use it to make up a half-gallon starter in a demijohn to split up for subsequent brews.

The only other alternative is to delay your brew if the yeast doesn't start.

[oblivious]

why not wait till Friday or Saturday, I find the liquid take a few day to start. at worst you can let if ferment out for a week and store the slurry in the fridge. I now generally give the the starter 5-7 days to ferment to be on the safe side

[mysterio]

Make a starter now. On average I find the WL vials take about 48 hours to spring into action. I've had failed batches before because i've not given the starter adequete time.

Make a 2 liter starter, boil 200g DME in water for 15 mins, chill, pour into a suitable sanitized container (demijohn or something similar), aerate the hell out of it by shaking, add your yeast. Then give it a good swirl every time you pass it and keep it somewhere warm (20 - 22 C ish).

[SiHoltye]

Am boiling DME now! Also handling the vial to raise it back to room temp, but hopefully not too quickly. It wasn't fridge temp it had probably only reached 8degC.

[SiHoltye]

Got krausen now! It'll have a whole lot more wort to play in this time tomorrow!

Anyone know a temperature regime for pitching and fermentation that extracts desirable characteristics from this yeast?

[mysterio]

What are you brewing SiHoltye?

There's a table in "Brew Like a Monk" which reports the characterestics of each of the Belgian yeasts. For WLP500 it says:

Low (14-19C) - Clean, Balanced, Earthy
Medium (19-24C) - Spicy, Light Phenol, Fruity
High (24-29C) - Fruity, Mod. Phenolic, Solvent

I would be tempted to pitch at the lower temp (18C or so) and let it rise up a little naturally during the course of fermentation. Pitching warm and fermenting warm is a bad idea apparently.

[SiHoltye]

Brewing a Belgian Pale Ale (I think). It is really to make enough yeast for a go at Chimay Blue after!

[RabMaxwell]

Make a starter now. On average I find the WL vials take about 48 hours to spring into action. I've had failed batches before because i've not given the starter adequete time.

Make a 2 liter starter, boil 200g DME in water for 15 mins, chill, pour into a suitable sanitized container (demijohn or something similar), aerate the hell out of it by shaking, add your yeast. Then give it a good swirl every time you pass it and keep it somewhere warm (20 - 22 C ish).

Does 2 days to start with WL yeast also apply to 2 litre starter on a stir plate .I made a 2 litre starter put it on my homemade stir plate at 6pm last night cannot see anything happening yet it was dated 20th march just passed. First time using a stir plate so it's new for me & not entirely sure what i should be seeing

[mysterio]

It certainly takes 2 days for me on a stir plate. You will see it change colour and the stir bar will slow down (noticeably) when it kicks in, it'll probably foam up a bit too. If you keep it somewhere warm it helps.

If you decide to split it into smaller bottles (Jim's method), if you make a starter from each sample they should become active within 24 hours (depending on how long you've stored them).

[RabMaxwell]

Cheers Mysterio

[mysterio]

Are you seeing anything in the starter yet Rab

[delboy]

I have a belgian wit yeast on a stir plate at my feet at the moment, the norm that i see when using a stir plate is next to nothing. I would only ever see a krausen if i stopped the thing for an hour or two.
In my experience though even if the yeast looks like its doing nothing after a few days when you switch it off you will have a considerably larger yeast cake on settling.

[mysterio]

Interesting - my wit yeast had a massive head of foam on my stir plate!

Here's a starter of WLP001, approximately 48 hours after pitching (wit was easily double the foam):



Could it be down to how fast the bar is spinning, maybe?

[delboy]

Could well be mysterio, what speed do the homemade ones tend to go at, mine is adjustable and i tend to have it cranked up as much as possible without actually throwing the bar.