brandonp22
New Member
When do I need to use a yeast starter? When is one not necessary?
brandonp22 said:When do I need to use a yeast starter? When is one not necessary?
I agree with joshpoo.joshpooh said:Anytime using liquid yeast I would use one, any time using dry yeast its not neccesary and probably a hinderance.
FlyGuy said:If you are using a very fresh batch of liquid yeast (either White Labs tube or especially the Wyeast Activator packs) and your beer is 1.045 OG or less (assumes 5 gallon batch), you don't need one. Otherwise, always make one, and it should be scaled relative to the gravity of your brew and the age of your yeast. See the Pitching Rate Calculator at MrMalty.com for full details.
You are right -- I stand corrected.PseudoChef said:According to the pitching rate calculator, your beer needs to be 1.028 or lower before you don't need a starter. That's with the freshest yeast possible and intermittent shaking.
FlyGuy said:You are right -- I stand corrected.
That's wierd, because I have been using those numbers for a while now, and I am sure that I got them from Jamil's calculator (albeit the previous version). But I checked the math on the new calculator manually, and it is correct.
One note -- Jamil uses George Fix's high end of recommended pitching rates in his calculator. While I trust Jamil's advice, I consistently pitch a little lower than he suggests and get excellent results. Also note that every commercial yeast manufacturer's website that I have come across suggest pitching rates that are lower than Jamil's (actually, closer to the lower end suggested by Fix). I suspect that Jamil is very liberal in his pitching rates to be safe, while the yeast manufacturers are quite conservative to be cost effective. So as long as you are in this range, you are probably safe.
Pugilist said:To add some more to the argument of making starters. I made my first starter on sunday and pitched it today at 2pm into my SNPA clone. There is a solid 1-2inches of krausen on the surface already and the bubbler is going about every 4-8secs.
That is more proof that a starter helps the beer take off fast and healthy! Thanks to the help from the folks on this forum as usual for guiding.
Forgot to add I used Wyeast american ale 1056. Packaged on 1/22/08, so was VERY fresh.
DAAB said:That's an imperial gallon (20% larger than a US gallon). The correct ratio is up to 100g per liter.
DAAB said:Fix's figures are quite low, commercial pitching rates for an ale are often [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, Sans-Serif]1 million cells per milliliter [/FONT][FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, Sans-Serif]per degree Plato rather than 0.75 million cells/ml/deg plato. That's not to say Fix was wrong, I suspect commercials include a safety margin when it comes to pitching rates.
[/FONT]
BrewDey said:I'm starting to wash and save yeast, and thus I'm beginning to use starters more regularly. I've used 2 cups of DME in 2 pints of water. Not really sure of this gravity, but it got those babies going really good on the last batch. Is this a pretty good ratio?
The one sticky I read on here I believe called for 1 cup for 1 pint...so I just doubled both.DAAB said:Sorry, don't know the weight of 2 cups of dme but for 2 us pints 31/2 oz would be about right.
BrewDey said:The one sticky I read on here I believe called for 1 cup for 1 pint...so I just doubled both.
Enter your email address to join: