Starter boil-off, SG sample

I made my first starter yesterday and I noticed that my original 1L water + 1 cup DME mixture had reduced in volume after the 10 minute boil down to approx. 900 mL. Is it important to start with the correct water-DME ratio or finish with the correct ratio(use more water next time)?
I've read on the forum that people have taken SG readings of their starter. Do you purposely make your starter a little bigger than you need so you can pull ~150 mL for your SG measurement? Or do you sanitize your SG equipment and then dump the wort back into the batch?

Thanks,
Andy

You want to target your post volume boil, but +/- 10% won't really matter in a significant way.

Once you've made a couple, you'll probably lose interest in measuring your gravities. If you measure your DME and water correctly, you'll get the same gravity every time.

Isn't it helpful to measure the final gravity to know when the starter is finished? Or am I over thinking this?

anbowden said:

Isn't it helpful to measure the final gravity to know when the starter is finished? Or am I over thinking this?

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It'll be done in 48 hours, probably less. Even if you cut it off a smidge early, your goal here is to grow yeast, not ferment beer. The bulk of the yeast growth happens before active fermentation even starts.

Starters get pretty rote. I do 100g of DME per 1000mL of water, use volumes as dicated by yeastcalc.com, and let the thing go 2 days on the stirplate and then 2 days in the fridge. Decant off the spent liquid and pitch on brewday.

Don't boil it for so long. I let my starters reach boiling then kill the heat, once it reaches the boiling point everything is dead anyway. Check out this link

MalFet said:

It'll be done in 48 hours, probably less. Even if you cut it off a smidge early, your goal here is to grow yeast, not ferment beer. The bulk of the yeast growth happens before active fermentation even starts.

Starters get pretty rote. I do 100g of DME per 1000mL of water, use volumes as dicated by yeastcalc.com, and let the thing go 2 days on the stirplate and then 2 days in the fridge. Decant off the spent liquid and pitch on brewday.

Click to expand...

I've read elsewhere that starters are done in 12-24 hours. How do you know when your starter is done? Is there any danger in letting to go too long? Eventually the yeast run out of "food" to eat, right?

Thanks,
Andy

anbowden said:

I've read elsewhere that starters are done in 12-24 hours. How do you know when your starter is done? Is there any danger in letting to go too long? Eventually the yeast run out of "food" to eat, right?

Thanks,
Andy

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No real danger, except for contamination I suppose. 12h sounds plausible too. Chris White says 48h on plate and 48h in fridge, so that's what I do.