Floating DME bits in my starter OK?

I finally decided to stop being lazy and make a starter. I had some older DME in a ziplock in my beer stuff drawer - so I boiled a cup of that in about 6 cups of water for 5 minutes... but now that it's cooling down, there are bits of floating stuff on top. I guess this is just stubborn DME that refused to dissolve.

Is this OK to use? I haven't pitched any yeast onto it yet, so it won't cost me much to chuck it out and go get some new stuff if need be. This is in prep for a high gravity expensive beer (clone of Chimay Blue - expected OG 1.089) and I don't want to start off on the wrong foot.

Here's a pic - that pot was clean before adding water and DME to it:

Hm - just took another look at it - there is actually a whole bunch of stuff hanging out on the bottom of the pot. It looks like there is just a lot of the DME that didn't dissolve. Still not sure what to do - advice appreciated!

More edits: I was able to find some similar threads. I decided to put it back on the heat and boil+wisk it until this stuff dissolves.

Looks like break material

I would guess that that is just leftover stuff from the DME. Even with DME you will get some trub. It should not be very much though.

But, You did not say what type of starter you are making. If you do not have a stirplate your starter is much to small, or you need more than one vial of yeast for it.

For intermittent shaking using one vial, mrmalty.com suggests a 3.34 liter starter for your gravity. That is 14.12 cups.

kh54s10 said:

I would guess that that is just leftover stuff from the DME. Even with DME you will get some trub. It should not be very much though.

But, You did not say what type of starter you are making. If you do not have a stirplate your starter is much to small, or you need more than one vial of yeast for it.

For intermittent shaking using one vial, mrmalty.com suggests a 3.34 liter starter for your gravity. That is 14.12 cups.

Click to expand...

Good point. Since I was re-boiling anyway I added more DME and water for a total of 2.4 liters - still short of mrmalty's numbers, but a heck of a lot better (hopefully) than just pitching 2 vials of yeast into the final beer like I would have done before.

If you plan ahead you can do step starters to build up cell counts from small samples.

I do small weak starters in several steps decanting after each starting from 10 grams of frozen yeast.

yeastcalc.com is a good source for information on step starters.