Hi there,
just registered as I'm intrigued by this technique and have a few questions.
In my particular case SNS seems to require more effort than stir plate I use now so I'm only interested in it because better yeast health.
Did anyone check cell count and viability of yeast produced via SNS or stir plate starter? I'm particularly interested if shear stress is measurable, real issue as this seems the biggest difference between aproaches. I'm already pitching yeast starters on height of the activity (without decanting) and absolutely agree this is the way to go.
I'm growing yeast from slants and on final step I boil 1.5-3l wort (depends on the yeast and beer style - 45l batches) in 5l erlenmayer flask , cool it down, pour previous 250ml starter with magnet to it and put on stir plate. After ~18h I pour the whole thing in fermentor.
If I wanted to adopt SNS I'd have to sanitize and use another container - more effort. However, I could use actual fermentor for SNS container. Just dump 1.5l of sterilized wort into 56l fermentor, shake the hell out of it, add 250ml starter and then add the actual wort to it on the brewday next day. My 56l HDPE containers can be sealed and are light enough that this would work. One issue I see is CO2 buildup, but I'm adding pure O2 before fermentation so got this covered. Might be even simpler than stir plate and if indeed produces better results, I'm all for it. Anyone doing this already?