Beer Forum

I've used this strain with sucess several times - love the result. The beer tastes one heck of a lot more like Budvar than beers made with the PU strain taste like PU.

But I'm having problems. The starters I'm making with it don't start! Last week I put 2 slap packs into about 5 gallons of wort containing 3 lbs of DME and 1/2 tsp. Wyeast Beer Nutrient Blend. Plenty of oxygen was supplied. After a couple of days - nothing. Finally, about 4 days in a bit of gas evolution began but subsided quickly. When I dumped it about 5 days later there was very little sediment.

So back to the LHBS for 2 more paks packaged about 6 weeks ago. Same story! 45 hours in there are only 2 tiny islands of foam one of which did not increase in size overnight.

It's not overly cold in the brewery - wort temperature has been between 65 and 70 °F in both cases. Other evidence: the slap packs did not swell visibly in the hour or 2 between slapping and pitching.

I've made starters in this way for years now so I don't think it's technique. My question here is whether anyone else who uses this strain has had trouble with it recently.



Thanks, A.J.

Sorry to hear of your yeast problems. i had a simular situation happen to me with the pilsen strain from Wyeast. I think that there was a chance that I was pitching my yeast into a starter wort that was too hot 90º+. 90º to the touch does not feel like 90º. it feels more like 75 to me. I realized I have been pitching too hot when i took the temp of a starter that I thought was 75º and it was 86º. So I may have killed off my yeast. I pay attention now to my starters.

Also keep in mind that they are lager yeasts so they should have less head then a ale yeast. I bet if you gave it more time it would come around eventually. That budvar strain makes a freaking awesome pilsner thats for sure! Hope you figure it out.

Westco

Maybe you got some that was older, or not stored optimally, or got hot during shipping? Maybe Wyeast had a sub-standard batch sneak past quality control? I'd do two things:

Let Wyeast know. I'm sure they'd like to hear about this. (then let us know how they respond)

Smack a day or so in advance next time you use this strain to see if the packs swells normally. I like the ability to proof Wyeast yeast before violating the seal.

Let us know what you find out.