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Peoples,

Ive been brewing for a little while with the help of a work college and have been quite successful, i'm now stepping things up a little with a brewing fridge (wine cooler) so i can accurately control the temps to obtain a better beer.

My question is the first batch is going to be a larger (knappstein copy) and looking to set the temp at about 12deg, because of the low temp will i require a yeast starter?? or will straight out of the packet work fine?? iv'e never done a starter and would be new territory for me.

Any help is appreciated.....

Cheers

Harmsy

Generally speaking, lagers will greatly benefit from pitching from a starter. The idea is that you want enough active yeast cells to be able to chew through the fermentables at lager temps without over-stressing them (which can produce some unwanted flavours.)

Starters are easy and you can make them with as little as a sanitised large juice bottle (4L) and some glad wrap and a rubber band as a lid. 200g ldme, 2L water and your yeast packet. That easy. Let the yeast fire up and start fermenting the wort, chill it all down in the fridge after a day or two (depending on how quickly it fires up,) pour the beer off the yeast, tip in a little pre-boiled cool water to swirl the yeast cake up with then tip that into your batch.

Cheers for that, I might have a crack at a starter tomorrow then, may as well do it right the first time!!

One more question, will I need a dry pack as well as the starter or the starter will do by itself?? There's so much on starters on the forum it gets a bit confusing....

You pitch your yeast pack into the starter, mate. It's essentially brewing a tiny batch to let the yeast multiply then throwing all that yeast into your batch.

Harmsy, what particular yeast are you planning on using?

A saflager S-23 pack

HARMSY wrote:A saflager S-23 pack

Don't bother with a starter, in that case, and save yourself the bother.
Just use 2 packs of yeast.

Starters are primarily made to build up cell numbers of liquid yeasts.

edit:- Bugger Warra got me while typing

What Bullfrog has said above is all good advise by me,
just a few things I would like to add.
Firstly.
Be super diligent with hygene & sanitisation, any bugs you let develope in your starter will be in a perfect position to multiply just like the yeast cells. (A starter is all about multiplying cells & getting them in the mood to consume sugars)

A note on yeast behaviour.
yeast cells will multiply in a solution rich in oxygen where there are sugars & nutrients to support them.
Once the oxygen has been consumed, they will slow down on multiplication & turn to consuming the sugars.

Secondly.
lagers, (as apposed to largers) require all-but double the number of cells to give a full, clean fermentation (I think BF said that)
One way of getting the cell count up with S-23 (I have done this with good results & it's written on the pack instructions) is to pitch the yeast with the wort at 20 deg C, then cool down to 12 or below over the next 24hrs.

Hope this helps, Mick.

Thanks for all the help, I'll get onto that starter tomorrow.....