Fermentin' 15gal?

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brentt03

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Well I know you all are going to say to make a starter, but I don't think I have the appropriate supplies to make one. I ordered 2 Wyeast Smack Packs...think this will do the trick? (*Please say yes*)

:drunk:
 
Too many factors not mentioned to give you an answer. What will the OG be? What is the age of the yeast packs? Using Mr. Malty will help you answer your question.
 
If your OG is 1.055 with smack packs at 95% viability you would want 6 smack packs. Get some DME and a sanitary vessel and make a basic starter.
 
Too many factors not mentioned to give you an answer. What will the OG be? What is the age of the yeast packs? Using Mr. Malty will help you answer your question.

OG is 1.063 and the yeast packs are prob less than a week old.

If your OG is 1.055 with smack packs at 95% viability you would want 6 smack packs. Get some DME and a sanitary vessel and make a basic starter.

Ugh, I know you are right, have no way to get some DME in time as we are looking to brew on Sunday; no homebrew store nearby. Looks like I need to do some googling on a starter with grains
 
Or try picking up some malta!! if your supermarket carries it works for making starters. i have one going right now on my stir plate!
 
Making a starter from grains is simple, mash enough grains to make as many liters of 1.040 wort as you need for the starter, boil it for a half hour, chill, and off to the starter races.
 
If you have ingredients for 15 gallons you have ingredients to make a decent starter, or you should wait. Why risk that amount of time and money and not have enough yeast to do the job?
 
Seems like making a starter will be my best bet no matter what; plus much cheaper than buying 4-5 more smack packs.

Any quick links on a how-to?
 
brentt03 said:
Well I know you all are going to say to make a starter, but I don't think I have the appropriate supplies to make one. I ordered 2 Wyeast Smack Packs...think this will do the trick? (*Please say yes*)

:drunk:

Its not the best but even basic sugar will make a starter. Typically 1.5 smack packs per 5 gals is what is needed. So ull need 4-5 smack packs. With no starter, take ur 2 packs and make a gallon starter
 
Agitate the hell out of it. Every few hours and it could be ready by Sunday, cold crash it saturday night and decant/ pitch the rest
 
You guys are awesome! Quick responses really save me in a pinch!!

So let me lay it out, and you all say yay or nay!

I have attached a pic from MrMalty. Using 2 Smack Packs for an Ale @ 1.063 and 15 gallons, I need 12.5 Liters of Starter.

How do I figure out how much grain and water/temp/time to correctly make this starter??? Any base grain work?? The one for this Red Ale is Golden Promise, I have some extra of that laying around....

Thanks again! :mug:

MrMalty.jpg
 
4.5lbs of your grain, mashed at 148 or so using 14.5L liters of water.
Boil it for a half hour or so. You're shooting for 1.040 OG on the starter.
 
Get some DME and use 100g per liter of water to make the starter. IMO, better to use DME than burn through wonderful grain.

Also, IF you select 'intermittent shaking' the size starter you'll need will go down quite a bit (8L). Not as far as if you used a stir plate, but much better. This starter type is one where every time you go by the starter, you give it a good swirl/shake. I would also cover the top/opening of the jar/flask/whatever you use to hold it with sanitized aluminum foil. That way the starter will degas and get aerated when you shake/swirl it. Swirling is also a safer option compared with shaking, IMO.

I made a starter earlier tonight for a brew I'm making on Saturday. With a stir plate, and expecting an OG of between 1.060 and 1.065 for 6.5 gallons of wort, I only needed to make a 1.67-2.0L starter. So I made a 1.75L starter and have it going with the yeast in it.

IF you REALLY want to make the starter by using your grain, then you'll need to figure out what you need to get the volume at an OG of 1.040. Seems like a lot of work, to me, just to make a starter. Especially when you can cold crash and decant it before pitching the slurry. That way you get mostly yeast, with very little starter spent wort in with your batch. Also, using DME is a fast way to get a starter going. You only need to do a quick boil and then chill it down (I use a cold water bath in the kitchen sink). Of course, I'm usually only making 1.5-3L starter sizes. At least while I'm getting 6.5-7 gallons into primary. :D
 
next time order a bunch of dry yeast, safale US-05 for instance. 2-3 packs of those and you'd be in business, no starter needed. after fermentation you could reuse the yeast for your next huge batch.
 
4.5lbs of your grain, mashed at 148 or so using 14.5L liters of water.
Boil it for a half hour or so. You're shooting for 1.040 OG on the starter.
BigRob, how did you caclulate this, just add it up in beersmith??

Does it have to be the base grain of the brew I am doing?

Curious what strain you are using?
Using Wyeast 1084; the local homebrew store which is 2 hours away, only had 2 packets of the 1084 and one of the wlp004

Get some DME and use 100g per liter of water to make the starter. IMO, better to use DME than burn through wonderful grain.

Also, IF you select 'intermittent shaking' the size starter you'll need will go down quite a bit (8L). Not as far as if you used a stir plate, but much better. This starter type is one where every time you go by the starter, you give it a good swirl/shake. I would also cover the top/opening of the jar/flask/whatever you use to hold it with sanitized aluminum foil. That way the starter will degas and get aerated when you shake/swirl it. Swirling is also a safer option compared with shaking, IMO.

I made a starter earlier tonight for a brew I'm making on Saturday. With a stir plate, and expecting an OG of between 1.060 and 1.065 for 6.5 gallons of wort, I only needed to make a 1.67-2.0L starter. So I made a 1.75L starter and have it going with the yeast in it.

IF you REALLY want to make the starter by using your grain, then you'll need to figure out what you need to get the volume at an OG of 1.040. Seems like a lot of work, to me, just to make a starter. Especially when you can cold crash and decant it before pitching the slurry. That way you get mostly yeast, with very little starter spent wort in with your batch. Also, using DME is a fast way to get a starter going. You only need to do a quick boil and then chill it down (I use a cold water bath in the kitchen sink). Of course, I'm usually only making 1.5-3L starter sizes. At least while I'm getting 6.5-7 gallons into primary. :D

I do agree that I should use DME but if I wanted to brew on Sunday, that doesn't leave enough time to try and get some in; and to be honest it doesn't seem like enough time to make an all grain starter either?? :(
 
You have time for a starter if you did one today. Most all of the yeast growth happens in the first 12-24 hrs. So you can make a starter today give it 24hrs or so and then chill overnight to decant off before pitching on Sunday.

Also, if you change the "Simple Starter" drop down option to "Intermittent Shaking" it will probably damn near halve your required starter size. Just shake your starter vessel every hour or so.

It may not be quite enough time for the ideal, but it will be much better than no starter at all (unless you're going to invest another $25+ in 4 more yeast packs). Stressed yeast will produce off flavors - and while I may say go for it in 5 gallons, 15 gallons of beer with an off taste is a lot to choke down!
 
my two cents:

Make five gallons of your recipe instead of 15, your two east packs would be just right. Then swash the yeast cake and that will provide you with enough yeast for a 15 gallon batch.
That way instead of making a couple gallons of through away beer for your starter you get beer you can drink, and you pitch the right amount of yeast in your 15 gallon batch when you do it.
 
I know this is a bit:off:but everybody here always talks about making a starter with LME or DME. I always just fill my brew kettle up a bit higher than I'd want to start with, and scoop out the extra before it comes to a boil. Then I just boil this extra on its own for a bit in a small pot on the stove and make a simple starter in a growler. Is there a reason I shouldn't do this?
 
It can be any base malt really, but given your time constraints it doesn't look like you'd have time to cold crash the starter and decant the starter beer and use only the yeast, so you might wish to use the same base malt as your 15gal batch is using.

All I did was make a simple 1.040 beer of 12L in Beersmith using Maris Otter which is fairly close to golden promise. You do probably have time to make the starter still, even if it ended up being a 6L starter that you dumped into the batch at high krausen.
 
I made a starter last night, chilled it, then pitched the Wyeast packet into it (had taken it out of the fridge far enough ahead, and 'smacked' it) and got the stirplate going. This is my first starter with one of the X stirbars. I also placed o-rings on all four legs of it, so that it wouldn't make as much noise. When I got home tonight (less than 24 hours later) it was done. This is also the first time I've used one of the foam stoppers (made/sold to be used in flasks with starters). So, it could have gotten much more oxygen into the starter than my previous starters (used the sanitized foil to cover those). Either way, I'll be chilling it starting tonight, so that it's ready to pitch tomorrow night.

I'll be using my 5L flask for the next starter (in 2-4 weeks) since I'll be making an old ale and want to use just one yeast packet. I'll probably make it another day earlier so that I can give it enough time to settle before it into my other flasks (a 2L and 3L) so that I can cold crash them and extract as much yeast as possible.

I would advise getting a 3# bag of extra light DME to make starters with. I would also seriously advise getting/making a stirplate and either get a flask (or a couple of them) or get glass jars that will work with the stirplate. You'll be able to make smaller starters that will finish much faster if you do.
 

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