Beer Forum

I've been brewing (extract) for about a year focusing largely on Belgian 2 & 3's and have been making starters for the past few batches. My question is about multiple step starters. Is this a good idea/bad idea? Pros/cons? Any advice is appreciated. Since underpitching seems to be much more common than overpitching, I thought it may be helpful to run the starter process twice. I am thinking 1c DME into 1l, boiled and pitched then 2 days later chill, decant and repeat, possibly pitching into wort when 2nd step is still going strong. I am using White Labs yeast, which are supposed to have 30-40B cells. Also, when a starter is made, what is the expected increase in cells? 2x, 3x, more?

Thanks for any help.

If you haven't already seen it, run some numbers through Jamil's Yeast Pitching Rate Calculator. It will tell you how large your starters should be, ballpark, for the age and amount of yeast you plan to use.
http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html

HanoverFyst wrote:My question is about multiple step starters. Is this a good idea/bad idea? Pros/cons? Any advice is appreciated. Since underpitching seems to be much more common than overpitching, I thought it may be helpful to run the starter process twice.

Unless you need to grow a lot of yeast (for a lager or from a very small original amount of yeast), a single stage starter should do it. Messing around with multiple stages only provides more opportunities to infect something.

HanoverFyst wrote:I am thinking 1c DME into 1l, boiled and pitched then 2 days later chill, decant and repeat, possibly pitching into wort when 2nd step is still going strong. I am using White Labs yeast, which are supposed to have 30-40B cells. Also, when a starter is made, what is the expected increase in cells? 2x, 3x, more?

White Labs vials and Wyeast smack packs (the larger ones) have more like ~100 billion cells. Again, the calculator will give you some more exact numbers for the size of the starter needed based on the OG of the beer, the type of yeast, and the age of the yeast. For the starters themselves, 1 gram of DMS per 10 ml of water is typically what Jamil recommends, for ease of use. It's worked well for me to date. Jamil's yeast starter FAQ might also be a good read for you to cover some of the basics: http://www.mrmalty.com/starter_faq.php

Ramping up starters is possible. There is a great podcast on starters, I think an early Brewstrong episode, maybe the Jamil Show. Also there is a great podcast on washing yeast. Info from both are useful here. Use Mr. Malty for sure. Remember, that the yeast will not always reproduce to double the cell count, a lot of that is dependent on the size of the vessel, yeast viability etc... So If I make a 2 liter starter, I cant just decant the wort and repitch that yeast to make a 4 liter starter. From what I have gathered on this site and podcasts, I could pitch half the yeast produced from the starter onto new wort and that would double leaving me with the equivalent of a 3 liter starter now (my first starter (2L x 0.5 + this starter 2L= 3 liters). Of course that's not 3 liters of yeast.
You should be using an Erlenmeyer flask and a stirplate, but I didn't have a stirplate for the first 2 years I brewed, and shaking it about once an hour works. Wipe down the opening of the flask with alcohol and flame it with a torch before decanting the wort, then transfer the yeast with a minimal amount of wort into a sterilized container. Make your new starter wort in the flask, cool it and then pitch HALF of the yeast starter that you previously made.
I brew on a budget. The cheaper I can brew efficiently, the more I brew. This saves me at least $7-14 per batch. My goal for brewing this year is every 3 weeks.
A lot of others here might have better advice, and if I misstated anything above please correct me. This has worked for me, I also brew a lot of Belgian Tripels and Quads.

ps. I ramped up a Lacto starter three times for my Sour that's in the carboy now.

Inoculation rate also affects growth. If the current number of yeast cells can metabolize the medium without help, they're not going to divide as much. If they need an army to chew through the sugar, they'll make one. A vial into 1L is already a high inoculation rate so crashing and adding another liter isn't going to promote much growth.

For a big beer, sure, but you don't want your 2nd step to be the same volume as your first. When I'd step up starters, I'd start with 1 vial to 2 quarts, decant, pitch that into at least 8 quarts for the 2nd step.

A 1 quart starter really isn't going to do a whole lot for growth & doing 2 in a row isn't going to do anything more than just the first one.

For starters, a quart & liter are close enough to the same thing. Starter gravity isn't all that critical anyhow. Cup to a quart is also where I would make them when using DME.

Bobbie Dooley wrote:Inoculation rate also affects growth. If the current number of yeast cells can metabolize the medium without help, they're not going to divide as much. If they need an army to chew through the sugar, they'll make one. A vial into 1L is already a high inoculation rate so crashing and adding another liter isn't going to promote much growth.

Thank you. This helps. I think I misunderstood the growth of yeast, thinking that they will multiply for the first period of time regardless of the wort content.

If I can pile on here...

For larger starters, what is a good guideline for how many days to let ferment before chilling in order to obtain full growth and best health? Do you let it ferment completely?

Second, how many days should you let it chill before decanting? 1 day enough?

I don't have a stir plate but swirl the flask as often as possible. I usually do my large starters on wednesday and by friday evening or saturday morning activity has slowed significantly and I chill. Then sunday before pitching decant, let it sit and warm to room temperature. I have noticed that often it will start fermenting again once warmed and I have wondered if I should have started it earlier in the week?

dirtbikejunkie wrote:If I can pile on here...

For larger starters, what is a good guideline for how many days to let ferment before chilling in order to obtain full growth and best health? Do you let it ferment completely?

Second, how many days should you let it chill before decanting? 1 day enough?

I don't have a stir plate but swirl the flask as often as possible. I usually do my large starters on wednesday and by friday evening or saturday morning activity has slowed significantly and I chill. Then sunday before pitching decant, let it sit and warm to room temperature. I have noticed that often it will start fermenting again once warmed and I have wondered if I should have started it earlier in the week?

That's roughly what I do as well.