hcfd918
Active Member
I have made many yeast starters on the kitchen stove in a regular pot and using a growler to grow my yeast in. Always wanting to improve my process, I purchased a stir plate and a couple of 2000 ml flasks. This seemed like the way to go because you could heat the flask and never have to transfer the cooled liquid before adding the yeast. Not to mention the added yeast growth. So I decide to use my propane camping stove instead of the electric range inside to make my first starter in the flask. After getting the water to boil I went to add my 5 ounces of DME in the 1.5 liter of liquid. Now in hindsight I'm not sure why I never saw this coming, but I was rushing thing a bit to go meet some friends for a playoff game. As I dump the DME into the flask using a paper funnel, It comes shooting out immediately like a volcano going all over my hand and down my leg. Minor burns and a very large mess is what resulted from my lack of thinking this thing out better. I have read quite a bit about starters and haven't really seen this mentioned before or if I did it apparently didn't stick. As dumb as this makes me feel I am posting this to maybe help save someone else a burnt hand and very large mess. It was a good thing I used the camping stove in the garage! My second attempt went quite well as I heated the water to almost boiling, removed the flask from heat, added and mixed the DME and then placed it back on the heat. The brew day went great which made it all better. Hopefully this will help someone in their brewing journey.