yournotpeter

Recipes 

In my last two batches I have finally gotten into using starters and the resulting fermentation has been outstanding. I use a 4 liter flask and a homebuilt stirplate.

However, I want to brew a big beer where Mr. Malty's pitch calculator says that my starter needs to be 7 liters! What kind of vessel are you folks using to make that big of a starter? And is there any way to use a large vessel and still use a stirplate?

HairyDogBrewing

Recipes 

When the starter has to be 2 gallons, you may as well brew a 5 gallon batch of a smaller beer and pitch on the cake.

SpanishCastleAle

Recipes 

I brew 5 gal. 'starter brews' for the big Belgians. I usually wash the cake, save a couple of mason jars, and pitch the rest.

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Early brewers were primarily women, mostly because it was deemed a woman's job. Mesopotamian men, of some 3,800 years ago, were obviously complete assclowns and had yet to realize the pleasure of brewing beer.- Beer Advocate

babalu87

Recipes 

+1 to that

jkarp

Recipes 

This is what Mr. Beer fermenters are for.

thelorax121

Recipes 

Ditto, an english mild or bitter or anythingon that scale works great, plus you get an extra 5 gallons of beer out of it

Bosium

Recipes 

Um, the problem i see with that is if you're brewing a big belgian beer, you'll be using belgian yeast. So if you wanted to brew a 5 gal starter beer, it'd have to be made with the same yeast, and i don't think an english bitter would taste good brewed with belgian yeast?

babalu87

Recipes 

Yeah but a simple Belgian Pale Ale would be a nice quaffer

lehr

Recipes 

Did you notice you can slid the scale up or down on mr malty so you can use more packs of yeast and make a smaller starter ?

yournotpeter

Recipes 

Yes! I did see that...but in trying to conserve cash, I was hoping to make the starter with only 1 pack. BUT....I just might go ahead and use two to make the smaller starter. I don't get a chance to brew as often as I like, so brewing a smaller batch and pitching on that cake isn't an alternative. I really like using the stirplate....my last two batches did so well and the starter was done on a stirplate.

Thanks to all for your help!