I plan to brew Sunday. I received WHC's fruit bowl yeast, but it has passed its expiry date( exp was 04/04/19 ie will be 9 days past by time of use).
I dont have time to build a traditional starter.
If i were to do a vitality starter (add the yeast to about 600ml of wort, and allow to reach high kuesen, and then dump into fermenter) on the day, would i be ok?
(planned brew of about 21-22 litres in fermenter at about 1.050 gravity. I have US-05 on hand if the above isnt a runner)
I've done similar myself, made a "starter" with the second runnings from the mash of the same beer, quick boil and cook and let it go for while, pitch the following day.
You'd get a decent starter done now if you have some DME or that
Dont have any dme atm. Could do a mini mash tomorrow alright, but figured, that doing a so call 'vitality' starter might actually be a better option, but dont know
.
2 day old yeast starters are best to pitch as they are a stationary phase according to white labs.
I would pitch the yeast direct if you don't have DME to build a starter. After 48-72 hours pitch the US05 to finish it off if it's sluggish.. Don't use sugar and water it interferes with the yeasts metabolism. The fruit bowl yeasts have a bit of gas on them so make sure to degas before shaking.
Philip
Thanks folks
So
Philip, are you saying, just pitch it into the fermenter, and if nothing happens after after 48 hrs pitch the dry yeast?
Or make a starter from the wort, and let it do its thing fir 48 hrs (like a normal starter)?
( Dempsey-i have a small window of opportunity to brew tomorrow, and dont like the idea of letting the wort sit in the fermenter for a period without yeast doing its job protecting it! Would use the US05 instead)
(also - degassing? Is that just, open tge lid a bit, let it burb, close and shake?)
I would open it let it degas. Then pour 3/4 in and them shake and pour the rest in. There is over 200 billion cells in there. Pitch them in it will kick off . Monitor the speed of fermentation over the next 24-48 hours and if it is laggy co pitch the us5.
Will do.
Out of curiosity, if it starts off with 200 billion cells when fresh, what is the count at its expiry date?
Just a folliw up: did as advised by Philip i.e aerated the wort and add the yeast (had taken it out of tge fridge on morning of brew day, to let it warm up gently, giving it a good shake every now and then).
It was doing its thing by the next day (wasnt able to check on it in the first 24hrs). All looking healthy and as expected.
Will report back in 2 weeks when i take final gravity, just as a record
How did it turn out?
Cheers,
Philip
Hi Philip. Only bottled thus evening (been a busy few weeks!). Beer finish at 1.010 - wasn't expecting it to be so low (from 1.053 og).
Had it cold crashing for a week, and it was still very hazy, so added some gelatin, and bottled after a further 4 days. The sample at bottling was quite positive. Will report back in a few weeks, once conditioned, on how it compares to us-05 version of the beer, but so far, so good
Just to follow up...
The bottles have carbonated nicely. And i am very happy with the result. I can 100% recommend this yeast.
This beer got a second in the nationals. I brewed using us05 for it, and this time just changed the yeast, to the fruit bowl. This version, the fruity back bone is more pronounced. I kniw there are the normal batch to batch variations (hop freshness, oxidation content, etc), but there is an extra quality to the beer this time, that i can only attribute to the yeast. It has that wee bit more fruit character that i had strove for. I'm a convert. Fair play to yerselves, Philip