Dark DME for a starter

Some days you give advice, and some days you ask for it. Today, I'm doing the asking.

I'm going to step up a starter for a Bell's Two-Hearted clone that I'm brewing tomorrow. Trouble is, I don't have enough light DME to get there. I have plenty of dark DME though, and some amber. I've read that one shouldn't use dark DME because it will flavor the beer...it will be a 2 liter starter in a 5.5 gallon batch.

Any opinions?


Thanks,

CB

Starters should be made with whatever you are using in the batch.

Since that's not possible in your case, I would opt for the lightest availble which would be your amber.

Crap. I'll be using amber in the batch, but I don't have enough to spare for the whole starter. Maybe I can get away with a 1.030 starter if I combine what I can spare of the amber, the rest of the light, and as little of the dark as possible.

If you are in a tight spot use whatever you have but let the starter go a little longer so that more of the yeast cells sink. Dump off the supernatant (the liquid above the yeast cake) and just use the settled yeast to start.

Well, at this point I'm wondering whether to use what I have...a liter of fermented starter...or step them up. They'll have about 24 hours to do their thing, which should be enough settled at the bottom.