Stepping Up A Starter

[jamilz]

I've never seen it done that way, but TB's process seems sound.

The original poster seems like he was going a bit too far. The first step of 1 vial into 2L was going to give him the equivalent of 2 vials (assuming a fairly fresh vial and no stir plate). So he was adding 2 vials to 4L. Not sure of the batch size, but probably too much yeast.

I really need to find the time to make the calculator do steps. I have the interface all planned out, just don't have the time to code it.

[BigNastyBrew]

I've never seen it done that way, but TB's process seems sound.

The original poster seems like he was going a bit too far. The first step of 1 vial into 2L was going to give him the equivalent of 2 vials (assuming a fairly fresh vial and no stir plate). So he was adding 2 vials to 4L. Not sure of the batch size, but probably too much yeast.

I really need to find the time to make the calculator do steps. I have the interface all planned out, just don't have the time to code it.

90 days? Really?

Seriously....

Love the calculator, JZ. I will absolutely NOT brew a beer without the starter and calculator first. But the step thing WOULD be nice, when you get the opportunity. I brewed a Doppelbock last week and I simply didn't have room for the starter it gave me. It wanted 2 vials in a 5.6L starter, i think (based off of 1.072 OG and I think it was a 2 month old vial). I knew stepping or TWO starters would work but I only have one stirplate (for now)...

[Krx]

[quote="Thirsty Boy"]You can tweak the calculator at Mr Malty to help you work out starter stepping up.

...OK, without changing anything else - go to the % viability input box and increase it. It will go up past 100%. Increase it till the line that says "vials or packs needed without starter" decreases to 1. It will be roughly the amount of cells you have divided by 100billion. so for our example, the percentage figure where the packs needed figure changes from 1.1 to 1.0 is 226% and it says no starter required...




Hi guys,

i'm also looking into stepping a starter using this calculaton, however am not sure if what I want to do will work.

I prepared 1.8L starter with 1 pack of a wyeast lager yeast, according to numbers provided by the Mr. Malty pitch rate calculator. After a few hours, I double checked the "use by" date and realized viability was only around 65%, and I had calculated my starter volume based on the current date, or 100% viability.

So, adjusting the rate calculator with the new viability #s, my current starter will be off by a considerable # of cells. If I then step up the starter, by carrying out the calculations above, I would need to decant and resuspend in a volume less than the original starter. Is this a wise thing to do, will the yeast be unhappy, or should I just start fresh with a new pack actually read the use by date....

Thanks!

[BrewQwest]

relatively new brewer here... I followed the steps as outlined by thirsty boy on page 2 of this thread but it doesn't seem to work correctly or flow as thirsty stated. Has the Mr. Malty calculator changed its format since thirsty's original posting???

[msjulian]

I know this is a few weeks old but I had a question on stepping up..I listened to the Brew Strong show on starters and the impression I got was that with a 4 of 5 liter starter you can just make your 4-5 liters of wort and pitch straight in to that and you would get the cell count that you needed. I got the impression from the show that until you get in the 20 liter area your gain on cells would be fine. Is this the wrong assumption??

[Nyakavt]

I know this is a few weeks old but I had a question on stepping up..I listened to the Brew Strong show on starters and the impression I got was that with a 4 of 5 liter starter you can just make your 4-5 liters of wort and pitch straight in to that and you would get the cell count that you needed. I got the impression from the show that until you get in the 20 liter area your gain on cells would be fine. Is this the wrong assumption??

I think you are talking about pitching a package of yeast into the first few liters of chilled wort and refrigerating the rest? Kai has an article on his site about the process Drauflassen, FWIW he has reported good results with it. It makes me a little leery since you don't know how much yeast you are pitching, but I guess if it works out then you don't really care.

[msjulian]

I think you are talking about pitching a package of yeast into the first few liters of chilled wort and refrigerating the rest? Kai has an article on his site about the process Drauflassen, FWIW he has reported good results with it. It makes me a little leery since you don't know how much yeast you are pitching, but I guess if it works out then you don't really care.

Not really...this was on the brew strong show about building starters. They were discussing how big a starter you could build and still get good cell growth and when to step up. The general consensus was that you would get good results and not really need to step up until you got up in to the 20l (5gal) size. They said that pitching a wyeast smack pack in to a 4-5 liter starter on a stir plate would give give you the cell count needed to match the pitching rate calculator on mrmalty. I was wondering if most stepped up to 4-5 liters or just pitched. I am brewing an Oktoberfest and going to ferment @ 50deg. I am planning on a 6gal batch and using a 4l starter.

[Nyakavt]

Not really...this was on the brew strong show about building starters. They were discussing how big a starter you could build and still get good cell growth and when to step up. The general consensus was that you would get good results and not really need to step up until you got up in to the 20l (5gal) size.

So you are referring to the point of diminishing growth? The mr. malty calculator stops you at 8L / 100 billion cells for a stir plate. Every increase in starter size up to that point results in diminishing growth. In other words, you grow the most new cells per L of wort with a 1L starter. A while ago I plotted the starting cell count per L of starter against the new cell growth from the mr. malty calculator, you can see the results below. It's a pictorial way to show what happens when you increase the starter size. An 8L starter will grow more yeast than a 1L starter, but it will not grow 8X more yeast.



You can find the link to the full picture since the forum likes to cut them off here.

They said that pitching a wyeast smack pack in to a 4-5 liter starter on a stir plate would give give you the cell count needed to match the pitching rate calculator on mrmalty. I was wondering if most stepped up to 4-5 liters or just pitched.

A 4 liter starter on a stir plate will grow around 425 billion cells, which is about right for 6 gal of 1.050 lager. I've made a 2L starter with a lager yeast before and fermented at 50F, it ended up tasting fruity and it did not fully attenuate. All my subsequent lager fermentations have been great after following the calculator recommendations. You can probably go +/-20% from the calculator recommendation and be fine, but it is a good place to start.