[jeffy]

Something I learned from Jeff Renner years ago to check if bottles are getting carbonated - the volume of liquid in the bottle will increase with carbonation.  Not sure if this is related but I thought I'd throw it out there.

[PrettyBeard]

Something I learned from Jeff Renner years ago to check if bottles are getting carbonated - the volume of liquid in the bottle will increase with carbonation.  Not sure if this is related but I thought I'd throw it out there.

Mskes sense, higher volume of liquid then gas, and liquid is generally less compressible.

[klickitat jim]

Walking this back just a bit. If you are making a starter with o2 or shaken not stirred, with yeast you dont have a ton of experience with, that may not show an obvious krausen with just 1000-1200ml... you might try splurging on 4" of tape and mark the level just after you pitch. If the level of the starter has gone up 6-12 hours later, it might be an indication that your starter is not dead. Something must have occurred to cause that increase in volume. What else could it reasonably be? Unless your kid dropped crayons in there, or you heated your starter to about 190F, or your flask somehow shrunk.

I cant prove it, but perhaps its an indication of life.

Probably there will still be disagreement.

[dmtaylor]

You're right.  My/our point though is that any increase in volume is most likely due to inconspicuous bubbles of CO2, which is a by-product of yeast metabolism; the volume increase is NOT directly from generation of yeast cells themselves, as you can't make something out of nothing, but rather from their CO2 by-product.  That's my theory anyway.

[BairsBrewing]

You could always use a microscope right?  You know, to measure the change in level.  No?

[JJeffers09]

But how many of us are doing cell counts before and after with a microscope?  It seems the microscope would show him what is in the starter, and if everything is happy he will see yeast.  other than that he would be wasting time when he could be just drinking a beer... or if the day is rough some whiskey

[klickitat jim]

Everyone is over thinking this, which is cool. First, I know that my starters are just fine. By the way both the 1728 and 1056 beers are currently rockin and rollin. This whole idea was meant as a super cheap and easy way for "shaken not stirred" folks to get some reassurance that its not dead. Disclaimer, I dont own stock in the blue tape company