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Temp81 · 09-09-2012, 04:31 AM

I was planning to brew tomorrow and was wondering of I could make a starter using honey or table sugar? I don't have any DME right now. I just harvested this yeast tonight and it is almost done being washed. I was going to fire up a starter as soon as the final washing is done.

**nukebrewer** · 09-09-2012, 06:14 AM

I don't see why not. It's a pretty popular belief that the yeast need to be in a similar starter to the beer that's being brewed, but a starter on table sugar is better than no starter at all. I've never tried it myself, but I can't think of any reason why it wouldn't work.

Temp81 · 09-09-2012, 03:27 PM

Normally I would just wait and do it with DME, but it was late, the yeast was freshly harvested, and I wanted to use it with in 24hrs. So I figured any type of sugar content would be enough to kick start the yeast back up. I wasn't worried about volume of yeast cells too much, as I harvested only 2 jars of the California Ale Yeast. I was going to do more but I really don't want a hundred jars of yeast in the fridge. But its not a big deal now, I decided to brew a stout today, so I am just going to buy some irish ale yeast, and then I'll harvest that and add it to the small yeast bank I plan to keep.

duboman · 09-09-2012, 03:34 PM

The sole purpose of making a dyer is to grow a healthy cell count. Using a simple sugar to accomplish this is really not ideal is the wort is comprised of the more complex sugars chains.

Certainly yeast will rapidly gobble up the simple sugars but once pitched into all those complex sugars they may have a hard time adjutant to their new environment and your lag time may actually increase as a result.

RobertRGeorge · 09-09-2012, 03:36 PM

The yeast also likes some nutrients like nitrogen and protein to start with. Straight sugar and honey lack these.

Temp81 · 09-09-2012, 03:46 PM

Thanks, fellas. I am pretty new at all of this. I have never made a starter. This is also the first time I have ever harvested yeast to keep. I am going to LHBS again today to buy my stuff to brew. I will just make sure that I keep some DME around from now on.