Yeast starter: I need confirmation

Ok, I washed the yeast from my last two 5 gallon batches according to Berie Brewer's excellent yeast washing tutorial

This afternoon I am planning to make a starter for two 5 gal. batches I will be doing this weekend......Despite reading everything I could here I find myself in need of confirmation about how much washed yeast to use in my starter. I'm keen to hit somewhere near the correct pitching rate for a 1.047 bitter. So, how much of this yeast do I use, and what quantity of DME etc? Yes, I've read all about it. I'm just hoping someone will spell it out for me in big fat neon letters with naked showgirls pointing to them.

Thanks in advance. Straight from their succesful tour of my fridge.... here are the Yeastie Boys!

Laughing_Gnome_Invisible said:

Yes, I've read all about it. I'm just hoping someone will spell it out for me in big fat neon letters with naked showgirls pointing to them.

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Classic.

Can't help with the pitching rate. Sorry.

It looks like you'll need 100ml of your yeast slurry, thats coming from Mr. Malty. I usually use .25lbs of DME per quart of water for my starters......if it helps

Hugh_Jass said:

Classic.

Can't help with the pitching rate. Sorry.

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Classic? we have a special thread for those in drunken ramblings! Hey! I only just noticed you are in Mansfield! Did you know that if you ask your local coca cola people nicely they will give you their 55 gallon food safe fermenters? oops! I mean drums. They gave me 5 of them to use as filters for my fish pond. Since the new beer hobby I have been trying to figure out a brewing use for them.:cross:

Displaced MassHole said:

It looks like you'll need 100ml of your yeast slurry, thats coming from Mr. Malty. I usually use .25lbs of DME per quart of water for my starters......if it helps

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A 100 ml of that stuff at the bottom per 5 gals? I don't got that much!!

Really? Thats only about a half cup of yeast.

Displaced MassHole said:

Really? Thats only about a half cup of yeast.

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You looked at the picture right? There is just a few millimetres in each jar!

If it's all the same yeast then why not decant all the wort on top of the yeast, combine them, add fresh wort to increase yeast population to your desired amount and them split the yeast between the two batches. Think that will work for you?

Hmm, then I pitch all that stuff in all 5 jars and hope for the best? How much DME?

that you don't have enough yeast is precisely why you should make a starter.

the calculator on mr. malty says that you need approximately a 1.58 liter starter, so boil up that much 1.040 wort, cool and pitch in a jar or two of your saved yeast (decant the liquid first). you want to end up with 100ml of yeast slurry, but the yeast will multiply. one or two jars should be enough to put into the starter.

that should get you up to a good cell count, then you can pitch the whole starter or put it in the fridge for a day or two and decant the liquid. i just pitch the whole thing.

So, I just make the DME thingy and pitch all 5 jars into it for the two 5 gal batches? That was what I was planning to do.....It just seemed a bit random.

i apologize, i forgot that you were doing two batches.

so, putting more yeast into one starter wont give you proportionally more yeast at the end. to get a starter going you really don't need a ton of yeast as long as it's healthy.

you'll either need a big starter that you'll split (which is kind of a pain) or two appropriately sized starters.

for two batches, i'd make two 1.58 liter starters and put one or two jars of your saved yeast in each to get it going.

I have been having issues with my yeast washing because I end up with very little yeast in each jar like you. It finally occurred to me I should use a larger jar for the first go-round, so I can get the entire cake into the first jar, and then split that up into 4-5 jars. Instead I have been pouring off only part of the slurry until my first jar is full which is only getting part of the cake out.

A typical yeast cake is about 500-600B viable cells, so if the entire cake made it into the first jar (pouring out until sludge starts coming out) that would give 100B cells per jar, and you could use Mr Malty as if you were pitching a vial and putting the harvest date in as the mfg. date. Since I was a **&@# %@#&@#% and only harvested part of my cake I will probably throw all of my jars into a single starter when I reuse the yeast and learn from the experience.

Yeash, I think I was too selective when I washed the little bastards. I'm thinking I should pitch the whole lot in a random amount of DME.......But that seems a bit arbitrary. .......Should I just do that?

Can't go wrong making a 2L starter at 1.030-1.040 and pitching the whole lot.

Looking at your pics I would combine two of your jars per batch. Then put those in a starter of 2 cups water & 1/2 cup DME, per batch. Do that the day before you brew and pitch the whole thing to your wort. The yeast should be at a good activity level by then and will be ready to get to work in the fermenter.

I just did it this way for the first time and this batch was done fermenting in about 36 hours.