yeast starter for BIG batch production

[fullmoonwinery]

hi all, i haven't been on the forum for a while. i've made a lot of wine, cider and beer recently in 20L buckets and most of it turned out great, especially the tropical fruit wines and cider; passion fruit and mango are the best.

i just shelled out 12,000 quid on 3x shiny new 3000 liter FV's but have no idea how to brew anything bigger than a 20L bucket so if any one out there has microbrewery operations experience, i'd love to hear from you. maybe we could work out a consultancy arrangement.

anyhoo, i'm thinking about yeast starters and read this with interest:

http://www.winesathome.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=908

what size starter would you make for a 3000L batch? i was thinking about using a 6L water bottle? would that be a good start? i could go to 20L drinking water PET bottle easily, maybe that's better. how many packs of yeast to you think to get it started?

i also read with interest about the need to oxygenate the starter. i have to be very careful about sanitation in a commercial operation and don't want to mix in unfiltered air. i was thinking about using an air lock on the starter bottle and oxygenating with a fish tank air pump and using a HEPA filter on the air. does that sound like a good idea? what about buying oxygen bottles from a medical supplier and pumping pure oxygen in, would that be better?

your thoughts please, thanks, steve

[wisp]

You have spent £12,000?

I am supposing that you don't want to do this as a hobby?

[lockwood1956]

what size starter would you make for a 3000L batch? i was thinking about using a 6L water bottle? would that be a good start? i could go to 20L drinking water PET bottle easily, maybe that's better. how many packs of yeast to you think to get it started?

Hi Steve

in a 350 litre batch I use 3 yeast packets and make it into a 2.5 litre starter, no problems so far.

your batch is ten times this size, but I dont think you need ten times the yeast packets, its getting a large enough colony built during the lag phase of the starter.

I would email one of the wineries in OZ and ask them what sort off size of yeast colony they are pitching into 3000 litre batches, winemakers are a friendly bunch, and more technical papers on how to make wine have been written in OZ than everywhere else in the world put together. Think the numbers are something like.......they make 8% of the worlds wine, but write 55% of the technical papers.

worth an email

let us know what you find out (i will dig around also)

regards
Bob

[fullmoonwinery]

not even i can drink 9000 liters of wine (cider actually) in a few months. i'm starting a winery/brewery/cidery call it what you will

Mr Bob, that's in line with what i'm thinking, on the starter size 350 to 2.5 liter is about 3000 to 20 liter. and i agree, 3 packs in 350 liters makes sense but 30 packs in 3000 is too much, that's why i was thinking about 10 since its self propagating.

i have a question however, there must a lot of foam generated by the starter. for your 2.5 liter starter, what size container? 6 liter?

[lockwood1956]

Check this out.....

they say 1kg yeast to 1000 gallons (thats US gallons which is 3.8 litres to a gallon)

http://www.scottlab.com/products/fermentation/documents/FermentationGuide_nopriceform_000.pdf

[lockwood1956]

see here also

http://www.scottlab.com/info-center/faq-fermentation.asp#yeast

[lockwood1956]

Food and oxygen for the yeasties as well as temperature control will yield good results.

Are you pumping the must over or are you stirring somehow?

[wisp]

Are you pumping the must over?

What do you mean? In English please?

[lockwood1956]

In very large batches one needs to mix thoroughly and keep aerated.

There are many ways to achieve this, in wines macerated on the skins, one would punch down the cap of skins that form on the surface, or you can pump from the bottom of the fermenter back to the top and thus aerate and keep the pommace wet. In the early stages of fermentation it is vital that the yeasties have enough oxygen, or they will not reproduce effectively and establish a colony large enough to ferment the whole batch, once the colony is large enough we exclude O2

If you want some really interesting info, read the fermtech manual I placed the link to.....some great info.

regards
Bob

[lockwood1956]

i have a question however, there must a lot of foam generated by the starter. for your 2.5 liter starter, what size container? 6 liter?

I use a 5 litre container, but I am using Lalvin K1V-1116 a lot these days, and it doesn't foam much at all........but boy is it a great yeast, allows the fruit to express itself, and its a killer strain. So never any worries about wild yeasties, they just cannot compete with the K Strains

[Cellar_Rat]

Steve,
I use 1 sachet in 500l (in a gallon sweet starter the day before) - but I know I am being tight. So 6 to 10 I reckon. Yeast needs oxygen in the first few days to get started well - you can use your transfer pump to help with this. 3000l will go on to make a huge amount of CO2, do not underestimate this - particularly in enclosed spaces. It can kill you!! I have a contact for large vessels if you are thinking of racking and storage. Are the rules on taxation etc etc much different in thailand ? What are you making first?

Good luck

Brian

[lockwood1956]

Steve is beyond the reach of HMRC.....he lives in Thailand

[wisp]

In very large batches one needs to mix thoroughly and keep aerated.

There are many ways to achieve this, in wines macerated on the skins, one would punch down the cap of skins that form on the surface, or you can pump from the bottom of the fermenter back to the top and thus aerate and keep the pommace wet. In the early stages of fermentation it is vital that the yeasties have enough oxygen, or they will not reproduce effectively and establish a colony large enough to ferment the whole batch, once the colony is large enough we exclude O2

If you want some really interesting info, read the fermtech manual I placed the link to.....some great info.

regards
Bob

Cheers Ace

[Rich]

Slightly related... The whisky places I've toured up here use 21kg of dry yeast for a 25000 ish litres brew (iirc). It comes in 7kg packs, and I can't remember the name!

[fullmoonwinery]

Food and oxygen for the yeasties as well as temperature control will yield good results.

Are you pumping the must over or are you stirring somehow?

that's a great file from scotlab, thanks. it will take a while to go thought it.

here's the FV. i will pump the must from the base and squirt in into the top, i guess i also need to pump air or oxygen in at the same time. i suppose i need to do that for a few days to get it well mixed and the yeast to get kicked off. how many days is enough?

i know about the CO2, i will vent it outside but i was thinking about compressing it into a bottle and using it in the filling machine. i would probably need a dive compressor for that and some dive tanks. i don't know if its economical that way or better just feed the greenhouse gasses and buy bottled CO2.

we are making tropical fruit cider, passion fruit, mango, pineapple, pomegranate. they all taste great.

the tax rules are different here for different size companies. Boon Rawd Brewery who turn out a staggering 4 million bottles of Singha per day per brewery (and they have 3 breweries) pay 60%. we will probably pay about 30% but it depends on alcohol content and total volume of sales. we buy stickers from the excise tax office and stick them on the bottles after filling. if they find a sticker less bottle, its a quick trip to the Bangkok Hilton and its cockroaches for dinner, every night.

we got a VIP tour of Boon Rawd a few weeks ago, the scale is mind boggling. their FV's are 470,000liters each! the bottling room is the size of wembley arena.