Author: Jake Huolihan

I’ve changed a lot in the way I brew– the particular methods I use, things I find important, and definitely the styles I enjoy making and drinking. Whereas I used to brew Double IPA and Imperial Stout almost exclusively, my preference has evolved to include more nuanced, delicate lagers. I’ll always enjoy a good IPA, but there’s something special about the crisp malty goodness of classic lager styles like Vienna and Pils that have stolen my heart.

Unfortunately, making lager tends to require more effort than ale, at least when conventional methods are employed. In addition to increased boil, fermentation, and conditioning times, it’s generally recommended that a substantial amount of yeast be pitched to ensure a healthy fermentation at cooler temperatures, sometimes as much as quadruple the amount recommended for ale. This can be accomplished by purchasing more yeast, though it’s likely most prefer saving some coin by propagating yeast in a starter, typically requiring a large flask and lots of malt extract. Moreover, many brewers choose to crash these larger volume starters once fermentation is complete and decant the supernatant before pitching to avoid potential off-flavors. Whereas I tend to make ale starters a day or so before pitching, I have to get my lager starters going nearly a week in advance to account for all of these steps. Is there a better way?

Results from the first xBmt on vitality starters inspired me to give the method a shot and many successful uses I’ve fully embraced it. In contrast to standard starters focused on viability, the purpose of a vitality starter is to ensure the yeast is healthy and active when pitched. They’re also quite convenient since they require significantly less wort and only 4 hours on the stir plate. However, I’ve been apprehensive about using a vitality starter in a lager due to my dogmatic adherence to the idea such cool fermented styles require a greater amount of cells. Curiosity eventually won out, and with some gentle encouragement from the crew, I decided to put it to the test!

| PURPOSE |

To evaluate the differences between a split-batch of the same lager beer pitched with either a vitality starter or a viability starter.

| METHODS |

From the beautiful city of České Budějovice in the Czech Republic stems an equally as beautiful Bohemian Pilsner that became a personal favorite of mine while visiting the region, Budějovický Budvar, aka Budweiser Budvar or simply Budvar. Wanting to have something close to Budvar on tap at home, I designed a simple recipe using WLP802 Czech Budejovice Lager yeast and bought two packs with same manufacture date.

This Budvar’s For You

Recipe Details Batch Size Boil Time IBU SRM Est. OG Est. FG ABV 11 gal 60 min 33.5 IBUs 4.5 SRM 1.054 1.010 5.8 % Actuals 1.054 1.009 5.9 % Fermentables Name Amount % Pilsner (2 row) (Gambrinus) 24 lbs 99.84 Black (Patent) Malt 0.6 oz 0.16 Hops Name Amount Time Use Form Alpha % Saaz 65 g 60 min Boil Pellet 4.2 Saaz 90 g 30 min Boil Pellet 4.2 Yeast Name Lab Attenuation Temperature Czech Budejovice Lager (WLP802) White Labs 78% 50°F - 55°F

Four days before brewing, I determined the appropriate volume for the viability starter using my preferred yeast calculator. To achieve the suggested count of approximately 400 billion cells, I pitched a single pack of WLP802 into 2700 mL of starter wort.

I began cold crashing the starter after about 36 hours, as signs of fermentation were no longer present. I collected the ingredients and water the night before brewing then awoke early the next morning and got to work. Once the strike water was heated to the appropriate temperature, I mashed in to hit my target temperature.

Following a 60 minute rest, I performed the batch sparge method to collect the full volume of sweet wort.

I proceeded to boil the wort for 90 minutes, during which hops were added according to the recipe.

With the boil complete, I quickly chilled the wort to a respectable 62°F/17°C then split it equally between two 6 gallon PET carboys.

A hydrometer sample at this point revealed the wort was at 1.054 OG. The full carboys were placed in my fermentation chamber to continue chilling to my desired pitching temperature of 49°F/9°C. Since I wanted the vitality starter to be on the stir plate for only 4 hours, I waited until the wort was 53°F/12°C before preparing it, which involved pitching the other pack of yeast into a mere 500 mL of starter wort then placing it on my stir plate.

Both batches had dropped to my target fermentation temperature by the time the vitality starter was ready. Based on instructions from Colin Kaminski, from whom we learned of this method, only the wort that would be pitched with the viability starter was hit with pure O2. In fact, the vitality starter method is specifically designed to eliminate the need for oxygenation. After decanting the viability starter, I pitched both into their respective worts. Then my wife and I left for a weekend fly fishing trip in the mountains. When I returned 2 days later, I was startled to see things weren’t going as expected based on my many previous experiences with vitality starters in ales.

I frantically checked brew day photos to ensure I hadn’t pitched both flasks into the same carboy in my rush to pack for camping. Realizing this was likely a function of the variable in question, I committed to documenting the fermentation progress in more detail than I usually do. After giving the vitality starter beer an extra day before I did anything rash, I was rewarded with signs of fermentation, whew! By 3 days in, the vitality batch was starting to show signs of life, which pathetic as it was, eased some of my worries.

A day later, the vitality beer maintained a somewhat darker appearance than the viability batch, which I interpreted as a potential indication of a sluggish fermentation.

Finally, at 9 days post-pitch, both batches looked the same.

Out of curiosity, I took hydrometer readings 12 days into fermentation that showed the viability beer had reached 1.013 SG while the vitality starter was sitting at 1.032 SG. I usually raise the temperature after about a week of fermentation for my lagers, but chose to keep these beers cool in hopes of emphasizing any differences caused by the variable. I took more hydrometer readings 10 days later and found the viability beer had reached the expected 1.008 FG while the vitality beer was still at 1.013 SG. Thankfully, neither sample had any hint of off flavors, in fact, I was pleased with the flavor of both. I began gently nudging the temperature in the chamber up to 60°F/16°F in hopes of encouraging the vitality beer to finish fermenting. Finally, after 30 fucking days, the beer pitched with the vitality starter had dropped to 1.009 FG and signs of fermentation were absent; the viability beer was still at 1.008 FG.

I proceeded to cold crash and fine with gelatin before kegging.

The filled kegs were placed in my keezer where they were burst carbonated then left to condition for about a week. When it came time to collect data, the beers were clear, carbonated, and shared a very similar appearance.

| RESULTS |

Cheers to the Aurora City Brew Club for allowing me to crash a meeting to collect data for this xBmt!

A panel of 29 people of varying levels of experience participated in this xBmt, all blind to the variable being investigated. Each taster was served 2 samples of the vitality starter beer and 1 sample of the viability starter beer in differently colored opaque cups then instructed to select the unique sample. In order to achieve statistical significance at this sample size, 15 participants (p<0.05) would have had to correctly select the viability beer as being different. Ultimately, only 7 tasters (p=0.90) made the accurate selection, suggesting participants could not reliably distinguish a lager pitched with a standard viability starter from one pitched with a vitality starter.

My Impressions: From my first sampling of these beers in a simple side-by-side comparison to later “blind” triangle tests, I’ve been unable to tell them apart, they look, smell, and taste exactly the same to me. And thankfully so, because it’s good beer! The WLP802 Czech Budejovice yeast produced a lager I experienced as being very crisp and clean with the slightest hint of sulfur, a character I desire in this style of beer. The beer portrayed a delicate malt flavor I really enjoyed, though perhaps due to my restrained use of hops, I felt it was closer to an American Lager than a Czech Lager. But whatever, it was dry, refreshing, and infinitely quaffable.

| DISCUSSION |

A very limited amount of information exists on vitality starters, in fact, top results of a Google search for the term point back to our original article on the topic. Because of this, hypotheses are developed based on what’s known about yeast viability and health, our own as well as others’ anecdotal experiences, and of course prior xBmt results, of which there was only one. My personal hunch when going into this xBmt was that a vitality starter would produce a beer no different than a standard viability starter, this given the fact I’ve used them extensively in my brewing and it has always worked very well. What I didn’t expect was the increased lag and extended fermentation in the batch pitched with the vitality starter, as my experience with ales has been vastly different, and this certainly caused me to question whether the beers would be different.

But they weren’t different, at least in terms of appearance, aroma, flavor, and mouthfeel, as a decently sized pool of participants were incapable of reliably distinguishing one from the other. These results provide evidence that lag time may not be all that detrimental when good sanitation practices are used, and may help ease the minds of those who didn’t have time to prepare a standard starter before brew day.

Despite the lack of a perceptible difference, I’m super bummed by these results, I really hoped the vitality starter would perform similarly with cool fermented lager as it does with warm fermented ale. Instead, the time saved on the front-end by not making a viability starter was paid back more than twofold by the extended lag and fermentation time of the vitality starter beer. The fact a lager pitched with 0.25 million cells/ml/°plato was indistinguishable from one pitched with a standard amount of yeast is surprising to me given the seemingly ubiquitous fear brewers have about underpitching, but that was overshadowed by my frustration with the objectively observable difference in fermentation between the batches. I’ll continue to regularly use vitality starters both in my ale brewing and to further explore how they perform with cooler fermented lager beers.

If you’ve used the vitality starter method in your brewing, whether for lager or ale, we’d love to hear form you. Please share your thoughts and experiences in the comments section below!

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