Starter Advice

I need some advice. I recently purchased a 2000 ml starter kit to pitch into a 5 gallon batch of 1.058-1.060 beer. BeerSmith and Mr Malty recommend a starter size of 3 liters. I was under the impression that a 2000 ml starter would be good enough for a beer with this starting gravity. This is my first attempt at using a starter.

If I need to increase my starter to 3000 ml how should I accomplish this?

My yeast is White Labs WLP090 with a production date of Sept 5th.

Any guidance would be appreciated.

I would suggest getting a stir plate. It will greatly reduce the needed size of the starter.

I found that a starter size of 500ml works fine for me. I'd consider 3000ml if I was doing a high-gravity or lager beer, but I would feel perfectly fine pitching 2 liters. And I've never used a stir plate, but I agitate the starter vessel every hour or so, and keep it in a dark, warm place.

I made a 500 ml starter for a beer with an OG of 1.09 and it got going just fine. It only got down to 1.035 though, but I think that has less to do with the starter, and more to do with the temp, I think, I'm no expert when it comes to yeasties.

A stir plate is not in my near future. I was going with shaking ever hour. I'll see what happens.

Amff said:

A stir plate is not in my near future. I was going with shaking ever hour. I'll see what happens.

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I just bought a 1 gallon jug from my LHBS for 5 bucks. It's got a slightly concave bottom, which makes it harder to use my stir plate (still works, though), but if you are just going to be shaking every hour, I would recommend this instead of paying outrageous amounts of money for Erlenmeyers. The jug is equivalent to a 3500 ml Erlenmeyer.

I routinely do 1 liter starters -- works out just fine. Just pitched one yesterday afternoon and by early AM today it was belching foam and CO2 out of the blow off tube.