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So I'm making a starter with Wyeast 2206 Bavarian Lager, and I don't know if I should make the starter at the temp I'm planing to ferment at (48f or so) or if I should make the starter at room temp?

I was planning to pitch the yeast around 70f and then bring the temp down to 48f once fermentation got going as per the instructions on the pack, but I've also heard it's best to get yeast used to working at their, well, working temp. Unsure which way to go, any opinions?

pyth wrote:So I'm making a starter with Wyeast 2206 Bavarian Lager, and I don't know if I should make the starter at the temp I'm planing to ferment at (48f or so) or if I should make the starter at room temp?

I was planning to pitch the yeast around 70f and then bring the temp down to 48f once fermentation got going as per the instructions on the pack, but I've also heard it's best to get yeast used to working at their, well, working temp. Unsure which way to go, any opinions?

I'd say room temperature ...

I'm curious to know how you make out. I did a 3-step starter with this exact yeast, at room temperature. My resulting beer had a noticeable alcohol taste to it. I have no idea why this happened, but I was thinking maybe I had messed up the starter.

I have read many times to make your starter at room temp. I make all of my Pilsner starters at room temp with no problems.

The Yeast book says that some Brewers do lagers a couple degrees cooler than ale yeast but that room temperature is fine. They said 18c-24c is the range and 22 would be a good mid point to shoot for.

If you had a big starter it might be best to crash and dump the spent beer from the starter before putting it into your fresh wort. You might pick up some weeks flavours if there is a lot of starter beer left.

I just started a starter for a pilsner on Wed night...fermenting it a slightly lower than room temp. I'm a couple of weeks out from brewing and need to do 3 steps to get enough for an 11 gallon batch...so time is on my side.

Yeah, maybe a little cooler than ale yeast would be fine, but warmer is generally better. The point of a yeast starter isn't to make good tasting beer, it's to grow yeast. Do you normally pitch the whole starter, or crash it first? I normally pitch the whole thing, but like Mike said, it might be better to not pitch the whole thing for this one.

I always decant...I don't want all the liquid added to the beer.

1L starters I usually just pitch the whole thing. Anything bigger, I will cold crash and decant.

My stepped up Pilsner starter is 5 L and I will decant today down to around 500 ml, swirl and pitch @ 8 C.

I went with the room temp option, stepped it up once. I was going to use today as my brew day...but I don't much feel like standing outside in a snow storm so I'm going to step it up again this morning, cold crash it for just a few hours tomorrow and maybe get a brew day in tomorrow.

How long can one expect a lager or pils starter to take to ferment out? I built up a starter for my 2nd step up (3 litres) on Tuesday night for my Wyeast 2278. Pitched around midnight...woke up to a small krausen in the morning...and by about 9 pm last night it looked like it had fermented out...krausen had dropped. I was expecting this to take a bit longer...but I have no information to base that on lol. It's sitting at about 17 degrees in the room I'm fermenting in.