Quick Yeast Starter Question

Its fine. Use it as your normally would. Yeast will ferment the sugars, all a starter is is a mini batch of beer minus the hops.

 

Depending on your pitch rate and cell count you may need to step it up a little bit but that all depends on the beer its going into.

 

With 4 days at room temp you'll lose some viable cells. But maybe no worse than, say, 4 days in shipment from an online HBS.

 

Just one unrelated comment: I'm always surprised when I see someone write "I forgot about it for a few days/weeks/months." Whenever I have something brewing I feel like I can think of nothing else. In fact, I think I forget about lots of other little things instead of the beer. Kinda funny - and also, a bit scary...

 

I'm on board with you. I seldom forget about it, it's more of a "Fuck it, it'll be alright for a little bit longer until I can get to it."

 

yeast doesn't mind room temperature. Warmer temperatures will speed things up, so you have to worry about them running out the stuff they need to survive, but I wouldn't worry too much about a substantial big loss of viable cells in four days at room temperature. What I would do, personally, is give them some additional wort and some O2, but I probably wouldn't feel the need do another complete stage.

 

^^^This^^^
...describes precisely much of my process (per Palmer).

You can...
...pitch at Hi-K...or...
...let the starter 'finish'...and "by allowing the yeast starter fermentation to go to completion, the...reserves (of)glycogen and trehalose are built up, and upon pitching, the yeast starts out with a ready fuel supply and a clean slate to better adapt it to the new wort"...cold crash...then pitch.

More...
*When is My Starter Ready to Pitch*
http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter6-6.html

 

I think when it comes to that "oh crap" moment it's a good idea post on here and get feedback. What's more important is that you smell and maybe even taste the beer in your starter to make sure we aren't wrong. It won't taste good, but it shouldn't taste infected either. We have to generalize that you did everything right and that you'll be fine. At least 4 out of 5 times you will be. Make sure you don't fall through the cracks here. As you said it's 7 bucks to get more good yeast. It's 4+ hours, $20+ for a batch of beer, and countless tears when you drain pour your baby.

 

I have read and watched about starters several times. What exactly is it going to do for me when I always hit my FG and usually go lower.. Im not seeing the huge benefit. My last beer was an imperial pale that started at 1080 and ended up at 1010 with the white labs 001 just right out of the tube.

 

It's not just about getting full attenuation. It's not even mostly about getting full attenuation. Here are some of the possible consequences of underpitching...

- high esters
- high fusel alcohols
- under-attenuation
- high diacetyl
- high sulfur compounds (particularly in lagers)
- high acetaldehyde

 

Ok .. cool. By making a starter you are not actually increasing the amount of live cells but just kick starting them correct ?

 

The final gravity is also reached faster.

 

Making starters improved my beer more than any other change in brewing or equipment, after going full boil - probably a toss up between the 2. By pitching the proper amount of yeast they are less stressed and in a happier environment. It does increase the amount of cells and gets them started in an environment similar to where they are soon to be.

 

No. The main purpose of a starter is to increase viable cell count. You can kickstart the yeast with a very small amount of wort (with very limited cell count increase), but that's not what is generally meant by starter.

 

Excellent .. point taken and now I will make starters !