Nope. It's good to go. A starter helps, but is unnecessary.
That is the pack I have. I see online others use a starter for these but others do not. I am caught in the middle. To start or not to start, that is the question.
the smack pack IS NOT A STARTER!!!
When I first started brewing Injust smacked the pack and pitched it... Did it make beer? Of course it did. Was it good beer? Yes it was pretty decent. Was it the best beer?
After I started making starters with the smack packs my brews turned out much better.
Do you need a starter? Yes if you want good beer. Look up the Mr. Malty calculator and make a starter of the recommended size and your brews will improve.
Starter it is. Thanks everyone!
Nope. It's good to go. A starter helps, but is unnecessary.
Wrong, Wrong, Wrong...
The nutrients in the smack pack is not the same thing as making a starter. It's just enough nutrients to wake the yeast up, it's not enough to cause the yeast to reproduce to the size we need for most beers. That's why it's important to know how much your beer needs and make a starter to that amount.
It's really a good idea to make starters when using ANY liguid yeast for all beers above 1.020 OG...
The biggest reason I suggest folks make a starter is if you make one you'll have peace of mind. It's especially important if you have questionable situation happenning with your yeast, like not being sure the yeast arrived healthy.
And you won't be starting an "is my yeast dead" thread in a couple of days.
Making a starter first insures that your yeast is still alive and viable before you dump it in your beer. You will be less likely to start one of those "is my yeast dead?" threads that are on here every day.
You will also ensure that you have enough yeast usually the tubes and smack packs are a lot less yeast that you really should use for healthy fermentation.
Making a starter also usually means your beer will take off sooner, because the first thing that the little buggers do in the presence of wort (whether in a flask or in a fermenter) is have an orgy to reproduce enough cells to do the job...So it won't take such a long time in the fermenter since they started doing it in the flask.
So making a starter proves your yeast is still healthy, allows you to grow enough yeast to do the job, cuts down on lag time, and ensures that you will not get off flavors or stuck ferementations from stressed out yeast.
WTF is that supposed to mean?
It's up to you...do you just want "good" beer, or do you want Great beer?
*shrug*
I can make a very long list of things that a not necessary to make beer. But who cares? If all you wanna do is make booze, go make toilet wine and have a party. If you want to make better beer, then make a starter and pitch the appropriate cell count. Why people come to a forum about beer and discourage people from doing one of the most effective techniques towards making better beer boggles me.
People decide for themselves whether certain techniques are worth their time for the corresponding increase in quality of their beer. You're entitled to your own compromises, but you're not entitled to assert that you are not in fact making a compromise when the technique is THOROUGHLY proven.
As an FYI, a Wyeast propagator pack is designed to inoculate 5 gallons of standard ale wort with slightly less than 6 million cells per milliliter of wort. This is consistent with rates indicated by Hough, Briggs et al., Malting and Brewing Science, volume 2.
I stand by my original statement of a starter being helpful, but not necessary.
As an FYI, a Wyeast propagator pack is designed to inoculate 5 gallons of standard ale wort with slightly less than 6 million cells per milliliter of wort. This is consistent with rates indicated by Hough, Briggs et al., Malting and Brewing Science, volume 2.
I stand by my original statement of a starter being helpful, but not necessary.
As an FYI, a Wyeast propagator pack is designed to inoculate 5 gallons of standard ale wort with slightly less than 6 million cells per milliliter of wort. This is consistent with rates indicated by Hough, Briggs et al., Malting and Brewing Science, volume 2.
I stand by my original statement of a starter being helpful, but not necessary.
johnsma22 said:The Wyeast Propagator packs were designed to be made into starters, but the point is moot because Wyeast has discontinued them due to the fact that there were too many people mistakenly pitching them directly in their wort. Most people stopped buying them because of the need to make a starter with them and went with the Activator Packs instead.
I no longer use Wyeast products and switched to White Labs liquid yeast some time ago. I make a starter for every batch if I'm using liquid yeast. Is it necessary? Don't care! I do it because I enjoy the process, and I'm always trying to improve my processes.
If it's good enough for Jamil and John Palmer to make a starter for every batch, then it's good enough for me. I'm sure that you could ferment in an old shoe and get beer, but that doesn't mean that it's a good idea!
thegerm said:The only time I've heard JZ advocate not making a starter and just pitching a single vial or smackpack is for milds, ordinary bitters and 60 shillings. And even that was with the caveat that the yeast pack was fresh.
Can a "junior member" chime in here? I've read debates on this matter on other forums, and you guys certainly seem like dedicated proficient brewers. In my brewing, I haven't seen any of the problems ascociated with "under pitching". I do however use yeast nutrient and O2 injection in all my brews after being rapidly chilled. They kick off quickly and ferment down to the expected attenuation with "smack packs". They taste great; I know I know, subjective and you'll argue they'd be even better with a starter! My point is a properly prepared wort IS A STARTER! The little critters do their thing in the presence of well aerated, nutrition rich wort. This is underemphasized in discussions about starters in my opinion. Pitch a giant starter into a wort that's just beeen shaken in the carboy for a few minutes for aeration with no nutrients added and you'll still have fermentation issues. Fascinating hobby aside, brewing is a pretty time consuming thing. My brew days can easily exceed 5 hours which isn't popular with the wife and kids. If I can save some time and hastle, I'm all for it. Sorry if that's some sort of blasphemy!!
Peace...
Making a starter will not increase the time of brew day at all! The starter would be made prior to brew day. It takes an hour or so a couple of days before brew day.
As an FYI, a Wyeast propagator pack is designed to inoculate 5 gallons of standard ale wort with slightly less than 6 million cells per milliliter of wort. This is consistent with rates indicated by Hough, Briggs et al., Malting and Brewing Science, volume 2.
I think that "point taken" would have been a better reason. Bob changing the language in his post shows that there was value.This message has been deleted by Yooper. Reason: nothing of value added
I think that "point taken" would have been a better reason. Bob changing the language in his post shows that there was value.
Now you can delete this too. :cross:
If you want to make better beer, then make a starter and pitch the appropriate cell count. Why people come to a forum about beer and discourage people from doing one of the most effective techniques towards making better beer boggles me.
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