What's your next brew
- Thread starter Ozarks Mountain Brewery
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I think I will reboot my 3C’s IPA, but using an updated grain bill. There is an abundance of Chinook hops in my freezer that I want to get into a beer, along with Centennial and Cascade. Given that it is now hot summer, and my brew house lacks temperature control, I am considering fermenting with Voss Kveik, or some other Kveik (liquid) available at the lhbs.
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I have used Polaris in a couple of beers and I didn't get the mint that I read about. Did you?
So the guy at lhbs (Windsor) sold me on Imperial Yeast Loki A43 for my IPA of the 3 C’s. It’s a nice fresh pack (packed on 7/2/21). Now I need to figure out how to pitch - the whole pack would be quite the over pitch. Should I build a starter, then use only what’s needed of that, while saving the rest for a future brew?
Me, I tend to overpitch, but half a pack even without a starter should be fine for a 2.5 gallon batch. The starter may be overkill, and also another overpitch.
Today the Piwo Grodniewski (?) gets brewed. After bagels.
Today the Piwo Grodniewski (?) gets brewed. After bagels.
No starters needed with imperial. Pitch it and save the slurry.
Too late, I built a starter last night. And that starter took off in the first 5 minutes after turning on the stir plate, resulting in a big krausen that pushed the foil cap off the flask. The yeast calculator on this site indicated that a starter was necessary, I guess assuming the packet contained only 100 billion cells at time of packaging. The package states 200 billion cells. It looks like I have an over built starter, so I need to figure how much to pitch in my 2.75 gallon batch, and how much to save for future brewing. My IPA of the 3 C’s will be abundantly hopped, both boil and dry hops additions, so I don’t think harvesting after fermentation would be prudent.
@Trialben don’t you regularly over build your yeast starters? According to the calculator, I need 160+ billion cells for my 1.063 OG IPA. I just wonder where I’m going with this project - yeast starters are a new thing for me. This is just the second time I’ve built a starter. My first starter turned out a very good Belgian Dubbel, in my humble opinion.
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I always overbuild my starters. I figure my target pitch and increase that by 50%. Before pitching, I put 1/3 into a sterilized mason jar and put the other 2/3 into the fermenter. The mason jar goes into the fridge (cap on loose) the next time I brew that style, it gets overbuilt.
So last night I put my flask holding the starter in the fridge. This morning, I took the flask out to let it come to room temp for brew day. I poured off a few hundred mils of the starter wort from the flask, and noticed the yeast cake was well congealed. Swirling the flask accomplished nothing, so I put it back on the stir plate. As the stir bar spins, there are chunks of nice white yeast swirling about, but I’m wondering if this is going to be a problem?
Loki is Voss Kviek no? Well that's a massive over pitch straight out the packet
. Like your stir plate herm
Is it a problem that the yeast is chunky, even though it is currently being agitated by a stir bar on a stir plate?
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Never used Loki but I have used some yeasts, most recently WYeast 1068 London Ale, that flocculate into heavy large clumps. Toward the end of the starter fermentation I have to increase the speed of the stir bar to keep it all in suspension. So, no worries there. However, I would be hesitant of using a stir bar in the middle of a thick mass of yeast. I would worry that the stir bar would rupture the yeast cell walls. When the yeast cells are all in suspension, the they can easily be pushed away from the stir bar. But when they are all packed together they have no place to go. Note I have no scientific or anecdotal evidence for this so, take it with a grain of salt. My belief comes from discussions of whether a stir plate can damage yeast cell walls through shear stress as they pass by the stir bar. I don't recall if this was ever proven. But, it did put the idea in my head to treat yeast gently.
@BarbarianBrewer point taken, but I can’t undo what’s already done. Looking at the flask just now, there are still chunks, but they are much smaller than when I snapped the picture. Turning off the stir plate now.
Yup dry English Ale does this too I think it's WLP 007.
Chunks won’t hurt. Like @BarbarianBrewer and @Trialben said English liquid yeast can be chunky. I’ve pitched slurry chunks to no detriment as well
Well, I just decanted off about a third of this well mixed starter for a future beer, and will put the remainder in the fermenter for IPA of the 3 C’s. Fingers crossed that my stir plate agitation didn’t cause any harm.
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It's no quite kegged yet but the sample I pulled didn't. So it's not looking promising.
