Lager starter and DME

If mrmalty says 4 quart starter for my lager, that's 12 oz (3/4lb) of DME.
Seems that's a lot of DME to add to my beer.

Should I reduce the amount of DME in my boil accordingly?

3/4lb would add about 6-7 gravity points

Cos said:

If mrmalty says 4 quart starter for my lager, that's 12 oz (3/4lb) of DME.
Seems that's a lot of DME to add to my beer.

Should I reduce the amount of DME in my boil accordingly?

3/4lb would add about 6-7 gravity points

Click to expand...

Yes. The water volume, sugar, and hops if you add them, of your starter should be considered as part of the ingredients that go into the wort.

BTW, I get perfectly good results with 1/2 to 1 quart starter.

What yeast are you using?

I never add as much extract to my starters as I'm supposed to, but they still work. Yes, you'll need to take that much extract out of your main boil to compensate.

Or, alternately (and optimally), you can cold-crash your starter the night before you brew by putting it in the fridge. Once the starter is fermented out, you've created the requisite yeast cells that you set out to create. Now all you have is uncarbonated, unhopped beer...so what you do is cold-crash it in the fridge for a day or two. The yeast will mostly drop out of suspension and leave the beer above. Once the separation is clear, you can decant and discard a good portion of the beer, then just pitch the yeast slurry. This way, you minimize the amount of starter DME that's going into your beer.

if you listen to the jamil show (he IS mrmalty.com) on the brewing network, downoad and listen to his show on munich helles ... yes, he does make a big starter but he specifically says he discards the beer from the yeast slurry. i wouldnt pitch that much starter in an ale let alone a lager. for what its worth, he suggests pitching the slurry at 40-45 f and then let the ferment temp rise to 50.

To answer the question, if you add the entire starter, you can reduce the amount of DME in the boil, but you should also take into account the volume of the starter so that the post boil volume plus the starter volume equals the required volume in the fermenter.
If you crash cool the starter to precipitate the yeast, and discard most of the starter liquid, pitching just the yeast, then you should not reduce the amount of DME in the boil. as you are not adding a significant amount of fermentables from the starter.

-a,