When you are making a starter that you know you will step up.....

Do you make all the wort at once? It seems convenient if you are making a 1.5L starter Monday and you know you will be stepping it up on Wednesday with another 1.5L, to just make 3L of wort on Monday, use half to start, and just save the other half in a container for Wednesday. Any drawbacks?

As long as you practice good sanitation, you should be ok. I would refrigerate it though and warm it up right before you do the second step. If you really want to get ahead of the curve on this, you should look into pressure canning wort.

Yea, I was thinking throw in the fridge, then, when you cold crash the first starter to prepare for the step up, take both out of the fridge at the same time and allow them to warm together. I'm probably not going to be stepping up too many starters since I don't lager... however, I did just make a 1.090 that required a step.

I wouldn't, and don't, do it. It's easy enough to make the second volume when its time to use it. IMO, it's more hassle to store the extra wort than it's worth.

Golddiggie said:

I wouldn't, and don't, do it. It's easy enough to make the second volume when its time to use it. IMO, it's more hassle to store the extra wort than it's worth.

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Oh, I don't know. It takes less time to sanitize a jar than it does to make a whole new batch of starter wort. And contamination shouldn't be an issue. The no chill brewers get away with it.

BBL_Brewer said:

Oh, I don't know. It takes less time to sanitize a jar than it does to make a whole new batch of starter wort. And contamination shouldn't be an issue. The no chill brewers get away with it.

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The gas stove where I'm living now has some high output burners that makes short work of getting the starters to a boil. I'd rather do the boil as needed then need to take up fridge space for it. Especially since I don't have a presure cooker/canner to use to safely store it after being made.

I've been using older yeast (bought a while back) so doing stepped starters makes tons of sense.

Golddiggie said:

I wouldn't, and don't, do it. It's easy enough to make the second volume when its time to use it. IMO, it's more hassle to store the extra wort than it's worth.

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I'd be open to it if you had a compelling reason not to do it, but don't think it takes a lot less time to throw 1.5L of wort in a jar than it does to make an entire new boil, chill the boil down to pitching temps, and use that?

J187 said:

I'd be open to it if you had a compelling reason not to do it, but don't think it takes a lot less time to throw 1.5L of wort in a jar than it does to make an entire new boil, chill the boil down to pitching temps, and use that?

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I see zero time saving by making the second starter ahead of time. The time it takes for the crashed first starter to warm up is more than how long it takes me to boil the second volume and chill it to pitching temp. Making the second volume ahead of time will mean loss of fridge space that is of much higher value to me.

Oh I see. Fridge space is no issue and I can warm up while crashed starter while I do other things, so the time it takes to make and chill another starter still costs me time.

I typically make 1L-3L starters, for each step (smaller ones first, bigger ones for the second step). I also measure the starter volume when I'm putting the water into the pot to boil, for the step being made. I'm not boiling the starter in the flask for any of the steps.

Do as you like, but don't complain when you have something go sideways on you down the line. IME/IMO there's not even close to enough benefits from making both starter volumes at one time to make it even a consideration. You'll either have two pots to clean up, in order to get them done faster at one time, or you'll have a longer time to get up to a boil for one larger volume.