Need advice concerning lager starter pitching

[PA Pride]

Brewing my second lager. I followed Mrmalty's advice and made a 3 gallon starter on monday. i was planning on brewing Friday night. Well it's thursday afternoon and it's still fermenting.
Should I
a) cold crash it
b) wait it out and brew a couple of days later than planned

Would could crashing favor any particular characteristics (high flocculators, low attentuators, etc).

thanks
jason

[BigBadBrad]

First off - Holy Crap. A 3 gallon starter? How big of a batch are you making? For my lager starters, I always let them finish completely, then chill in the fridge for a day or two so I can decant off most of the liquid before pitching the yeast into my lager. I wouldn't call it cold crashing since I don't want to drop the temp too fast and shock the yeast.

[PA Pride]

5.5 gallon batch. I need 400 billion cells. My vial was bottled on Jan 25, 2009. Mrmalty said 12 liter starter.
By the way, OG was 11 P.

I've decided that futures lager starters will be pitched with 2 vials.

[BigBadBrad]

5.5 gallon batch. I need 400 billion cells. My vial was bottled on Jan 25, 2009. Mrmalty said 12 liter starter.
By the way, OG was 11 P.

I've decided that futures lager starters will be pitched with 2 vials.

Interesting. According to my calculations, your yeast should be at about an 89% viability and you would only need 344 billion cells which could be made from one vial in 7.71 liters (2 gallons) of a simple starter. With a stir plate, you could get the same number of cells from one vial in 2.89 liters. I have never heard of anyone doing a 3 gallon starter for a 5 gallon batch. You would be better off stepping up your starters in 10x increments if your yeast was that weak to begin with. I'm not trying to be a jerk here, I am just being pragmatic. Less work for the same results is always a good thing.

[slowhead]

Brewing my second lager. I followed Mrmalty's advice and made a 3 gallon starter on monday. i was planning on brewing Friday night. Well it's thursday afternoon and it's still fermenting.
Should I
a) cold crash it
b) wait it out and brew a couple of days later than planned

Would could crashing favor any particular characteristics (high flocculators, low attentuators, etc).

thanks
jason

To answer your question......you obviously have a crap load of yeast now...I would cold crash and decant tomorrow
(at the last possible second)..even though your starter is not done fermenting, you definitely do have enough yeast for an 11P beer.....Brew on!

[PA Pride]

the lager I'm brewing is gonna be 14 P so I need 420 billion cells. Mrmalty recommended almost 13 liters of starter wort.

[siwelwerd]

It would make more sense to either brew a different beer and repitch the slurry, or to step up your starter. 3 gallons is a lot.

[BigBadBrad]

I suggest getting a stirplate. It will pay for itself since you will have to buy fewer vials of yeast and less DME for your starters. Another thing I do is plan several lagers in a row so I can just repitch my yeast. That saves a ton of money. Just make sure you start off on the light end and work your way up the gravity ladder.