dest149

Recipes 

Hey, so I am getting my beer brew kit tomorrow along with the recipe. Tell me how this sounds.
Start tomorrow (Friday)
- Activate liquid yeast until pouch inflates ~3-5 hrs
- Make a starter 1L (this will be weird because I only have LME that comes with the recipe kit is it okay if I use some of the recipe's LME for the starter)
- Shake every so often to mimic stirring plate
- Put on ice to floculate (is it okay to put the yeasties on ice or is this too harsh to cold shock?)
- Decant and pitch the slurry to the wort I will make on Saturday

Any suggestions/criticisms etc? Particularly if you could answer the parts about the cold and the use of the recipe kits LME

kh54s10

Recipes 

You don't have enough time without a stirplate. You will need a day or better yet 2 and possibly longer for the starter. Then it will take most of a day in the fridge to settle the yeast and a couple of hours to let it warm to pitching temperatures.

Pushing it you could make the starter and pitch the whole thing at high krausen.

Remember, this is a tiny beer and the yeast may take 24-48 hours just to start fermentation.

Edit. IMO if you took LME from the kit the amounts left in the kit are not right.

dest149

Recipes 

So how should I make a starter? And I want to floculate because I don't want to add 1L of bad beer.

BryceL

Recipes 

If you want to do it right, order yourself some light DME to make starters. I agree that you shouldn't take any LME from your recipe. That will throw off your gravity, among other things. I like to let my starters ferment completely for 2 days or so, then pop it in the fridge overnight. On brew day you can decant (leave a small amount of liquid) and let it warm to your pitching temp.

dest149

Recipes 

will putting the yeast on ice hurt them at all?

jaycount

Recipes 

It's going to send them in to a yeast nap. If you're making a starter today and brewing tomorrow, you barely have time for the starter to replicate and reach its prime, let alone time to cold crash and decant.

With this little of time, make the starter and shake it, often. Keep it at room temperature, don't put it on ice. Then pitch the whole starter into the beer tomorrow. I don't decant if it's a 1L starter in a 5 gallon batch. That's like 5% of your total volume, it won't affect the final product. When you get into bigger starters you need to start considering decanting (and making the starter sooner!).

Calder

Recipes 

Make starter. 2 pints of water and 0.25 lbs of LME. Shake as often as you can, but no need to be anal about it.

Pitch whole thing when ready.

2 pints in 40 will not make much difference, but will be really good for your yeast.

william_shakes_beer

Recipes 

I made my first starter Wednesday. 1L in a 2L flask. Still going Friday AM.

Mpavlik22

Recipes 

I usually start my starter on Tuesday or Wednesday for a Saturday brew day.

I would say you need almost 24 hours for all your yeast to flocculate out in a fridge.

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PseudoChef

Recipes 

You don't need to wait for the pouch to inflate. That's just wasting time.