Yeast starters..

are awesome!! Brewed a big IPA from NB yesterday and did my first yeast starter with it. Pitched the yeast at about 1:45 in the afternoon and by 8 in the evening I had airlock activity!

Nice!

I've had good results pitching right from the smack pack (bubbles start withing 6-8 hours) but I'm going to try washing/creating a starter from the Wyeast 1056 from the batch currently in my primary and pitching that to the IPA.

Which NB kit? I just ordered the Chinook IPA kit from them to brew this weekend (if it arrives in time).

That's great, man! You don't need to use an airlock on your starter though. Some sanitized aluminum foil over the top will work just fine. Some say that this is even better than an airlock because you want the starter to "breathe".

JohnnyO said:

You don't need to use an airlock on your starter though. Some sanitized aluminum foil over the top will work just fine. Some say that this is even better than an airlock because you want the starter to "breathe".

Click to expand...

I think he's talking about the airlock on the primary, not the starter vessel.

cms said:

I think he's talking about the airlock on the primary, not the starter vessel.

Click to expand...

Yea, that's what I'm talking about. This is my second brew and my first one took about a day and half to show any kind of activity.

As far as the kit it's the Sinistral Warrior IPA. One of my favorite local IPA's uses Warrior hops so I figured I'd give it a go. My gravity tasting was positive, sweet and hoppy. I plan on dry hopping it with 2 oz. of Warrior based on some of the reviews.

The only mistake I made was, being unfamiliar with LME (first brew was DME), I got some scorching because I wasn't as fastidious with my stirring as I should have been. LME seems to drop straight to the bottom of the kettle.

aygov said:

The only mistake I made was, being unfamiliar with LME (first brew was DME), I got some scorching because I wasn't as fastidious with my stirring as I should have been. LME seems to drop straight to the bottom of the kettle.

Click to expand...

I have only used LME so far, and here's a trick for that - If you move your kettle off the burner as you're adding it, you won't have to pour a big, awkward tub (or bag or can) while trying to stir and keep the syrup off the bottom. You'll lose some momentum in the water temp, but you will lose quite a bit anyway adding that much mass to your water.

cms said:

I have only used LME so far, and here's a trick for that - If you move your kettle off the burner as you're adding it, you won't have to pour a big, awkward tub (or bag or can) while trying to stir and keep the syrup off the bottom. You'll lose some momentum in the water temp, but you will lose quite a bit anyway adding that much mass to your water.

Click to expand...

I did pull it off the burner before I added the LME. I did have an "Oh crap!" moment though because I started pouring the LME and didn't have a spoon in my hand to stir with. I guess the bottom of the kettle was still hot enough to scorch the LME even though it wasn't on direct heat.

Yeah, I did my first starter a few days ago too because I was using yeast harvested from another batch and man it took off like a rocket. It was bubbling like crazy for last few days and now on day 4 it's still bubbling steadily. I've never seen so much fermentation action on any of my brews. Beginning to wonder if I over-did it with a 2L starter.