Trying to make a starter.....

Sorry for yet another "is my yeast working" thread......

A couple days ago I tried to make a starter. I'm using Wyeast 1187 Ringwood, and I smacked the pack a full day before I made the starter. I wasn't sure if I did it right, but I did here some hissing noises from inside the pack so I assumed it was OK. The pack says to pitch 3 hours after activating, but I waited 24+. That's one thing that has me worried.

The other thing is that I only used 1/2 cup light DME for the starter, where I've seen most people here use 1 cup or more. After boiling the DME in 1 1/2 cups water for 15 minutes, I cooled to 70deg, placed it into a sterilized growler and pitched the yeast. The packet was not expanded like I thought it should be, but it's my first time with liquid yeast. I also added a bit more water because the solution was fairly thick, and I also think I didn't shake it enough to get the oxygen in there....It's been stored at 70deg the whole time with a piece of aluminum foil on the top.

At this point it has been about 52 hours since making the starter, and I'm unsure if anything has really happened. I was expecting some krausen or something, but all I have is a murky liquid with about a 1/2" trub layer at the bottom.

Is the starter OK? Do I need to do anything?

thanks for listening to a noob

Well, first of all, you did fine! A good starter should be around 1.040- which is a 1/2 cup DME to 2 cups water. So, yours was fine.

And that trub stuff at the bottom? That's the yeast that you cultured! Starters typically don't get a big krausen or ferment hard. They usually finish very quickly and the only way to know for sure is to look at all the yeast in the bottom. That's what you're trying to do- make the yeast reproduce.

Sometimes, though, if I'm unsure if the starter ever, well, started, I take the sg of the starter liquid. If it's low, then I know the starter fermened out. Just my paranoid OCD, though, probably very few others would do that.

So, do you strain off the liquid on top, and just pitch the trub, or do you dump the entire "stater" in to your wort?

Wow, thanks for the speedy reply, YooperBrew.

So I'll assume that all is well.....but I have another question: can I boil up some more DME (say 2 cups or so), divide it into 2 growlers, then use my small starter for 2 larger starters? I'm planning on using this yeast a lot in the future, and it would be nice not to have to pay for it everytime! Also, if I CAN do that, how many times can I continue doing this in the future with the same original yeast?

Thanks!

Most people decant the liquid off the top, it's usually ozidized if you used a stir plate or shook it alot.
You can leave a little wort in there to swirl around with the yeast so you can pour them out easier.

Well, yes, you can do that. There are many ways to proprogate yeast. Do a search for "yeast washing" for a few ideas. You can also pitch right on the yeast cake with your next batch. That is, rack your finished beer into bottles or a carboy, and throw your next batch right on the existing yeast cake.

You can reuse the same yeast about 3 times or so I've heard before you have to worry about mutations. But you can split and use a starter a number of times. So, your $7 package of yeast can be used for many batches.

some people pitch the whole starter, and some decant the spent wort off and pitch just the yeast. Some people wait until the starter is completely done, and some pitch at "high krausen". There really isn't a "right or "wrong" answer here. I have done both, but with a lager I tend to decant. With an ale, it doesn't matter so much.

maltMonkey said:

Wow, thanks for the speedy reply, YooperBrew.

So I'll assume that all is well.....but I have another question: can I boil up some more DME (say 2 cups or so), divide it into 2 growlers, then use my small starter for 2 larger starters? I'm planning on using this yeast a lot in the future, and it would be nice not to have to pay for it everytime! Also, if I CAN do that, how many times can I continue doing this in the future with the same original yeast?

Thanks!

Click to expand...

You could do it that way but most prefet to Wash the yeast from your last batch

Thanks a bunch guys.