Splitting Starters for now and later.

[fishjam45 (Colin)]

Good morning.

I'm looking to use one vial of liquid yeast to do 2 or 3 brews with.

The plan, from what I've researched, is straight forward enough.
I'm going to make a 2 litre starter out of one vial, then use 1 litre of this on my brew that I'll be doing that week.
I'll split the remaining litre into 2 or 3 PET bottles to keep in my fridge. One question I have is - Do I let these PET Bottles ferment out further (in fermentation chamber) first or just put them straight in the fridge?
You would then build up to another 1 litre starter from the yeast in each bottle for your next brew.

It seems straight forward enough and if it does work should be a great way of saving money and having a small selection of yeast at hand.  I will give it a try and report back with results, if it works it should be a good resource for other brewers here too.

If anyone has any thoughts or would like to share their processes of similar experiences please share here.

[molc]

What I usually do is:
* overbuild my starters my 100Bln, which roughly equates to about 500ml extra for most.
* On brewday, I put 500ml in a small conical flask and the rest in the beer.
* Pop the conical flask in the fridge.
* In a few days, remove most of the liquid and pop it back into a 50ml vial.

If I don't need the flask again, I don't do the last step.

You are growing from clean yeast each time, but you will get drift, as it's a full growth each time. If you don't want that, then go with your method of making a big starter first and making multiple starters. Personally, I find it harder to keep yeast fresh that way.

My comp American Amber last year was done with a fifth generation sample of WLP051 done this way, with gaps of 3-4 months between regrowing the sample.

[fishjam45 (Colin)]

* In a few days, remove most of the liquid and pop it back into a 50ml vial.

Cheers Molc!

By transferring to PET Bottles and storing in the fridge would be doing something similar to your step above, no?

[molc]

Yup, same as really.