Yeast starter?

I Brew five gallon batches. All but one have been extract. I've got an all grain fermenting right now, and will typically be brewing Ag from now on.

I have never made a starter. I use wyeast and just pitch it in.

Do I need to make a starter now that I'm brewing all grain? Does it matter?

It's always a good idea to make a starter with liquid yeast to either grow the volume of yeast or just to make sure they are healthy and ready to go. Use Mr. Malty to get correct pitch rates. If you start making starters get a stir plate. Well worth the initial cost and makes getting the correct amount of healthy yeast much easier.

I would suggest you first read this, this and then use this the next time you plan to brew to make a starter.

I'm still pretty new at this so my understanding could be skewed, but it seems that it matters more what the OG is versus what you use to make your wort. Its possible to have a lower OG even when it is all grain.

All grain, partial mash, extract... doesn't matter. Any beer will benefit from astarter if you are using liquid yeast, unless perhaps you are doing a Belgian variety that benefits from the off flavors produced by underpitched, stressed yeast.

Gigemags05 said:

I Brew five gallon batches. All but one have been extract. I've got an all grain fermenting right now, and will typically be brewing Ag from now on.

I have never made a starter. I use wyeast and just pitch it in.

Do I need to make a starter now that I'm brewing all grain? Does it matter?

Click to expand...

I made my first starter about a month ago. Like other folks have said when using wet yeast it's always a good idea to make a starter. There's a twiki how-to on this forum that I used as an outline and it seemed to go well. Just use the search bar at the top of the forum to find it.
I made it the night before and left it on the counter until it was time to pitch. I had no idea what I was doing nor if it was going to work but about 15 hours later I had to get a bigger blow-off bucket because my brew was bubbling like mad. DWRHAHB and you'll be ok