Did I make a mistake with my yeast starter?

Outside of the volume of the starter (which I'm not sure is appropriate or not, based on age of yeast, OG of beer, volume of beer, stir plate, etc.), one thing you can do and which I always do is crash the starter for ~24hrs in the fridge. The yeast will settle to the bottom of the flask nicely and you can decant off the spent wort before you pitch. This will negate any effects on your beer's OG (which is probably negligible at best anyway) and prevent the oxidized spent wort from getting in contact with the beer.

 

If the krausen filled your flask (I assume a 2 liter flask?) then the yeast must have been viable, and you used the right amount. It should be fine for your wort, but I would also recommend what @Scope4Beer has suggested, and crash the starter in the friidge for a couple of days before decanting and throwing it into the wort.

 

Starter size is dependent on how many cells you are starting with and how many cells you want to pitch into your beer wort. There are several good yeast calculators out there.

ETA: regardless of the starter volume you need, the ratio of DME to water is typically more like more like 100 grams to 1 liter.

 

Firstly, the dry yeast manufacturers do not recommend that you make a starter with their products. Just sprinkle the dry yeast on top of your wort in the fermenter.

If you are brewing a high gravity batch (e.g., Barleywine) you should use more than one sachet.

Cheers!

 

Good point, Jack! I missed that he was using dry yeast. You can also rehydrate dry yeast as per the insturctions provided in their site (i.e. sprinkling the yeast in ten times its own weight of sterile water or wort for 30 minutes ).

 

That is indeed an option but not really necessary nowadays. Do you subscribe to BYO magazine? If so, there is an article entitled "Optimizing Dry Yeast. To Direct-Pitch or Rehydrate: That is the Question" in the September 2019 issue.

Cheers!

 

Yes, I do get BYO Magazine. Thanks for the information - I'll check it out.

 

Great article, Jack! I'm going to save myself a lot of fuss and bother in the future by just sprinkling the yeast on the surface of the beer.

 

The biggest issue I see with using a starter for dry yeast is then you actually have to oxygenate the wort and most homebrewers aren’t oxygenating their wort enough unless you have pure O2. With dry yeast out of the package you don’t need to oxygenate. If one pack isn’t enough I’d personally open another pack before making a starter.

 

This is what I would do also. But I would do it because dry yeast is cheap, not because it's somehow unsuitable for propagation. If I had dry yeast (but not enough of it), and a brewing schedule that didn't allow me to buy more in time for brew day, I absolutely would make a starter. And of course, I'd oxygenate the beer wort before pitching.

 

I most certainly do remember you!

Ironically last evening I drank a bottle of homebrewed Bohemian Pilsner. I love this beer; I brew a batch every year.

Can you please provide more details here? The final gravity that is achieved is also a function of the fermentablity of the wort. If for some reason you are achieving a less fermentable wort with the exception of certain yeast strains (e.g., Saison yeast strains) the yeast aspect will not 'solve' this issue.

Also, are these beers not pleasing to drink?

Cheers!

 

Gushers can mean any of the following...
- Too much priming sugar
- Infection
- Hop Creep
- Attenuation wasn't finished when beer was bottled

Given that you are consistently not getting the attenuation you expect before bottling (and assuming the expectations are reasonable), I'd be looking at the last possibility.

 

If it's going to sit more than, say, a week or so, I'd recommend using a yeast starter calculator to figure out how much yeast you probably had, how much will probably by left on your new brew date, and then decide if you need to increase the amount of yeast again. Sorry, but there's no definitive answer to "how long does yeast last?"

Or, you could throw caution to the wind and just roll with whatever you have. It will make beer.