Ghost ship clone (BIAB)

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Re: Ghost ship clone (BIAB)

Post by Kilterums » Mon May 17, 2021 11:27 am

So, are we saying that whether I pitch it all of save 25% to build up more, the number of cells that end up in the fermenter will be the same?

Rightly or wrongly, I thought saving the 25% for a kind of second starter would build up the cells quicker/better in a smaller volume of wort than in the 23l.

I'm kinda seeing your point now!

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Re: Ghost ship clone (BIAB)

Post by Kilterums » Mon May 17, 2021 11:30 am

Actually, my logic was to do with whether fermentation actually takes off initially rather than stalls later on.

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Re: Ghost ship clone (BIAB)

Post by orlando » Mon May 17, 2021 1:23 pm

If you're saving 25% of the yeast cells you are reducing the potential pitch by 25% You don't need a second starter if the original is enough. Only if you have 125% of the starter that you need would it make sense and then you wouldn't need it for this Beer. You can save it to make a new starter in the future. Your second point is also worthy of comment. You don't "build up the cells quicker/better in a smaller volume of wort". In fact to the contrary.
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Re: Ghost ship clone (BIAB)

Post by guypettigrew » Mon May 17, 2021 2:31 pm

orlando wrote:
Mon May 17, 2021 1:23 pm
Your second point is also worthy of comment. You don't "build up the cells quicker/better in a smaller volume of wort". In fact to the contrary.
So the yeast cells grow faster in a larger volume of wort? I think you've mentioned this before in an analogy with the number of sheep in a field--or something!

Which makes me wonder (again) why the advice for growing yeast from bottle conditioned beer is to start with a 250ml starter (say) then 500ml then 1 litre. Why not just go straight to 1 litre?

Guy

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Re: Ghost ship clone (BIAB)

Post by orlando » Mon May 17, 2021 3:01 pm

guypettigrew wrote:
Mon May 17, 2021 2:31 pm
orlando wrote:
Mon May 17, 2021 1:23 pm
Your second point is also worthy of comment. You don't "build up the cells quicker/better in a smaller volume of wort". In fact to the contrary.
So the yeast cells grow faster in a larger volume of wort? I think you've mentioned this before in an analogy with the number of sheep in a field--or something!

Which makes me wonder (again) why the advice for growing yeast from bottle conditioned beer is to start with a 250ml starter (say) then 500ml then 1 litre. Why not just go straight to 1 litre?

Guy
I think it is to do with osmotic pressure. A BC beer's yeast is in a pretty poor state. The cell walls are not robust enough to act as a membrane that takes in nutrients efficiently and expels the stuff we want. The ability to tolerate normal function requires the cell walls to be rebuilt. The higher the gravity of the wort the worse it is, particularly with the beer the op wants to make. Starters are usually recommended to be less that 1.040, closer to 1.030 would be better in the case of BC recovered yeast cells. The point of a starter is to make new cells not beer. Once all the O2 is used up it bud and start to make use of the sugars. The sheep analogy is one I think Chris White has used. There's only so much grass, so the more sheep there are the quicker that grass is used up. Then what?
I am "The Little Red Brooster"

Fermenting:
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Drinking: Southwold Again,

Up Next: John Barleycorn (Barley Wine)
Planning: Winter drinking Beer

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Re: Ghost ship clone (BIAB)

Post by Kilterums » Mon May 17, 2021 3:57 pm

Thanks all, interesting comments all contributing to the learning process.

The starter was in the region 1.030-1.040, closer to the lower end I think once the amount sampled from the keg was added.
I hit the numbers on the brew itself and having taken your comments on board, pitched 100% of the starter residue.
I reckon there was plenty of O2 in the starter so fingers crossed.

I'll let you know!

I've already noted to make up the starter a little different next time (aim for the middle of the range perhaps) once I've seen how this one turns out (or doesn't!).

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Re: Ghost ship clone (BIAB)

Post by orlando » Mon May 17, 2021 4:08 pm

Good luck. Interested to know how it turns out, particularly FG and % of attenuation achieved.
I am "The Little Red Brooster"

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Re: Ghost ship clone (BIAB)

Post by Cobnut » Mon May 17, 2021 4:14 pm

This - and this weekend’s brewing - has me thinking about yeast growth phase and subsequent fermentation phase.

How do they know?

If I pitch a yeast quantity at the smaller end of the scale, received wisdom is that the yeast get multiplying until there’s enough of the buggers to ferment the wort.

If I pitch a huge starter do they not bother multiplying and simply crack on with making beer?

How do they know?

I brewed a batch of mild with WLP002 a couple of weeks ago and collected almost the entire yeast cake, keeping it in a sanitised jam jar in the fridge. I took it out on Saturday morning and added it to about 1.5L of starter wort to wake it up and give me a decent sized starter for my Sunday brew (a SMASH). It was roaring away in the flask after a few short hours and there was a very solid layer of yeast by Sunday morning.

I pitched the yeast (after decanting the spent wort and adding some of the new wort) around 1230 and by 4 it was already off and running. Possibly the fastest starting fermentation I’ve yet seen.

How did they know they didn’t need to “multiply” and could simply get on with making my beer?

Slightly facetious style, but nonetheless serious question. 🧐
Fermenting: nowt
Conditioning: English IPA/Bretted English IPA
Drinking: Sunshine Marmalade, Festbier, Helles Bock, Smokey lagery beer, Irish Export StoutCascade APA (homegrown hops), Orval clone, Impy stout, Duvel clone, Conestoga (American Barley wine)
Planning: Dark Mild, Kozel dark (ish), Simmonds Bitter, Bitter, Citra PA and more!

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Re: Ghost ship clone (BIAB)

Post by Kilterums » Mon May 17, 2021 4:15 pm

Aiming for 1.019 so we'll see!

Thanks

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Re: Ghost ship clone (BIAB)

Post by Kilterums » Mon May 17, 2021 4:53 pm

Cobnut wrote:
Mon May 17, 2021 4:14 pm
This - and this weekend’s brewing - has me thinking about yeast growth phase and subsequent fermentation phase.

How do they know?

If I pitch a yeast quantity at the smaller end of the scale, received wisdom is that the yeast get multiplying until there’s enough of the buggers to ferment the wort.

If I pitch a huge starter do they not bother multiplying and simply crack on with making beer?

How do they know?

I brewed a batch of mild with WLP002 a couple of weeks ago and collected almost the entire yeast cake, keeping it in a sanitised jam jar in the fridge. I took it out on Saturday morning and added it to about 1.5L of starter wort to wake it up and give me a decent sized starter for my Sunday brew (a SMASH). It was roaring away in the flask after a few short hours and there was a very solid layer of yeast by Sunday morning.

I pitched the yeast (after decanting the spent wort and adding some of the new wort) around 1230 and by 4 it was already off and running. Possibly the fastest starting fermentation I’ve yet seen.

How did they know they didn’t need to “multiply” and could simply get on with making my beer?

Slightly facetious style, but nonetheless serious question. 🧐
In not sure but I'll be on Page 85 of Palmers "How to Brew" asap. I don't think they "know", it's all chemistry/biochemistry depending on your perspective!

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Re: Ghost ship clone (BIAB)

Post by orlando » Mon May 17, 2021 5:52 pm

Cobnut wrote:
Mon May 17, 2021 4:14 pm
This - and this weekend’s brewing - has me thinking about yeast growth phase and subsequent fermentation phase.

How do they know?

If I pitch a yeast quantity at the smaller end of the scale, received wisdom is that the yeast get multiplying until there’s enough of the buggers to ferment the wort.

If I pitch a huge starter do they not bother multiplying and simply crack on with making beer?

How do they know?

I brewed a batch of mild with WLP002 a couple of weeks ago and collected almost the entire yeast cake, keeping it in a sanitised jam jar in the fridge. I took it out on Saturday morning and added it to about 1.5L of starter wort to wake it up and give me a decent sized starter for my Sunday brew (a SMASH). It was roaring away in the flask after a few short hours and there was a very solid layer of yeast by Sunday morning.

I pitched the yeast (after decanting the spent wort and adding some of the new wort) around 1230 and by 4 it was already off and running. Possibly the fastest starting fermentation I’ve yet seen.

How did they know they didn’t need to “multiply” and could simply get on with making my beer?

Slightly facetious style, but nonetheless serious question. 🧐
Once the yeast have what they "need" or not they just get on with it. Problem is the not part, if you haven't given them enough of what they need for them to give you what you need.
I am "The Little Red Brooster"

Fermenting:
Conditioning:
Drinking: Southwold Again,

Up Next: John Barleycorn (Barley Wine)
Planning: Winter drinking Beer

McMullan

Re: Ghost ship clone (BIAB)

Post by McMullan » Mon May 17, 2021 6:00 pm

Cobnut wrote:
Mon May 17, 2021 4:14 pm
This - and this weekend’s brewing - has me thinking about yeast growth phase and subsequent fermentation phase.

How do they know?

If I pitch a yeast quantity at the smaller end of the scale, received wisdom is that the yeast get multiplying until there’s enough of the buggers to ferment the wort.

If I pitch a huge starter do they not bother multiplying and simply crack on with making beer?

How do they know?

I brewed a batch of mild with WLP002 a couple of weeks ago and collected almost the entire yeast cake, keeping it in a sanitised jam jar in the fridge. I took it out on Saturday morning and added it to about 1.5L of starter wort to wake it up and give me a decent sized starter for my Sunday brew (a SMASH). It was roaring away in the flask after a few short hours and there was a very solid layer of yeast by Sunday morning.

I pitched the yeast (after decanting the spent wort and adding some of the new wort) around 1230 and by 4 it was already off and running. Possibly the fastest starting fermentation I’ve yet seen.

How did they know they didn’t need to “multiply” and could simply get on with making my beer?

Slightly facetious style, but nonetheless serious question. 🧐
Start here :D

McMullan

Re: Ghost ship clone (BIAB)

Post by McMullan » Mon May 17, 2021 6:14 pm

orlando wrote:
Mon May 17, 2021 3:01 pm

I think it is to do with osmotic pressure. A BC beer's yeast is in a pretty poor state. The cell walls are not robust enough to act as a membrane that takes in nutrients efficiently and expels the stuff we want. The ability to tolerate normal function requires the cell walls to be rebuilt. The higher the gravity of the wort the worse it is, particularly with the beer the op wants to make. Starters are usually recommended to be less that 1.040, closer to 1.030 would be better in the case of BC recovered yeast cells. The point of a starter is to make new cells not beer. Once all the O2 is used up it bud and start to make use of the sugars. The sheep analogy is one I think Chris White has used. There's only so much grass, so the more sheep there are the quicker that grass is used up. Then what?
Under O2 conditions average cell replenishes its lipid membrane then divides (components of its lipid membrane) among daughter cells <5 times. After this aerobic and growth stage metabolism gets skewed towards anaerobic fermentation. For a starter, under pitching skews things away from growth and towards fermentation, which isn't the aim of a starter. If stepped up 5x, say, 20, 100, 500, 2500ml, things get skewed towards growth. The 'sheep in a field' analogy is a bit simplistic. As the membrane lipids ('grass'?) run out you want the yeast, in a starter, to have little sugar left to metabolise, so they complete a growth cycle and prepare for the resting phase, where metabolism shifts to make the cells more tolerant, e.g., for storage or to brewery wort, especially high gravity worts. Don't under pitch by using larger starter volumes than necessary. A stepped up starter of 500ml is going to have considerably more yeast cells than a 1-step 500ml starter, assuming both were inoculated at the same pitching rate, e.g., dregs from a beer bottle. The aim is to guarantee enough yeast cells to ferment a batch of brewery wort in a predictable way. Then harvest and repitch several times.

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Re: Ghost ship clone (BIAB)

Post by Cobnut » Mon May 17, 2021 6:52 pm

McMullan wrote:
Mon May 17, 2021 6:00 pm

Start here :D
I could only read the abstract (phew!), but that told me they do talk to each other.

Brings a whole new meaning to the term “yeast whisperer” 😂
Fermenting: nowt
Conditioning: English IPA/Bretted English IPA
Drinking: Sunshine Marmalade, Festbier, Helles Bock, Smokey lagery beer, Irish Export StoutCascade APA (homegrown hops), Orval clone, Impy stout, Duvel clone, Conestoga (American Barley wine)
Planning: Dark Mild, Kozel dark (ish), Simmonds Bitter, Bitter, Citra PA and more!

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Re: Ghost ship clone (BIAB)

Post by Kilterums » Tue May 18, 2021 8:31 am

McMullan wrote:
Mon May 17, 2021 6:14 pm
orlando wrote:
Mon May 17, 2021 3:01 pm

I think it is to do with osmotic pressure. A BC beer's yeast is in a pretty poor state. The cell walls are not robust enough to act as a membrane that takes in nutrients efficiently and expels the stuff we want. The ability to tolerate normal function requires the cell walls to be rebuilt. The higher the gravity of the wort the worse it is, particularly with the beer the op wants to make. Starters are usually recommended to be less that 1.040, closer to 1.030 would be better in the case of BC recovered yeast cells. The point of a starter is to make new cells not beer. Once all the O2 is used up it bud and start to make use of the sugars. The sheep analogy is one I think Chris White has used. There's only so much grass, so the more sheep there are the quicker that grass is used up. Then what?
Under O2 conditions average cell replenishes its lipid membrane then divides (components of its lipid membrane) among daughter cells <5 times. After this aerobic and growth stage metabolism gets skewed towards anaerobic fermentation. For a starter, under pitching skews things away from growth and towards fermentation, which isn't the aim of a starter. If stepped up 5x, say, 20, 100, 500, 2500ml, things get skewed towards growth. The 'sheep in a field' analogy is a bit simplistic. As the membrane lipids ('grass'?) run out you want the yeast, in a starter, to have little sugar left to metabolise, so they complete a growth cycle and prepare for the resting phase, where metabolism shifts to make the cells more tolerant, e.g., for storage or to brewery wort, especially high gravity worts. Don't under pitch by using larger starter volumes than necessary. A stepped up starter of 500ml is going to have considerably more yeast cells than a 1-step 500ml starter, assuming both were inoculated at the same pitching rate, e.g., dregs from a beer bottle. The aim is to guarantee enough yeast cells to ferment a batch of brewery wort in a predictable way. Then harvest and repitch several times.
This is interesting.

So, in my case where I ended up taking 400ml of the dregs from the 5l mini-cask (way more than I'd expected) into 800ml of 1.040 starter, I may have propagated yeast but not really ended up with "hardy" cells? I did get alot of O2 into that starter (stirrer plate) and it was going for nearly 5 days before I decanted and pitched (the whole of the remaining) into 21l of 1.069 wort last night. My starter ended up being way less than 1.040 also of course.

For the sake of interest, I did end up with 500ml of 1.069 wort tied up in dregs in the bottom of the mash vessel which I recovered and added to the liquid from the starter (which was still "sweet"), ending up with about 900ml. Both this and the 21l are going off pretty well this morning with a good looking krausen and a smell that's purely divine.

The one thing left to see now is whether I have the attenuation in what I've pitched to get down to 1.019, the target FG.

It's all good experience and when I do this next time, I can adopt the stepped approach. Shame I've not got a centrifuge to reduce the initial 400ml somewhat! That initial volume was really clear.

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