Need help with first yeast starter

Hey everyone. I am planning on brewing my third ever batch on Thursday. Its going to be a holiday spiced Brown Ale. I have decided to do a yeast starter instead of just dumping my White Labs vials into the primary. My last brew took about 50 hours to start after pitching my vials, so, I am going the starter route. No, I do not have a stir plate. But I do have DME, 2L Flask, and everything else needed to make a starter.

So, my main question is how many vials of yeast do I need? I have 2 vials of WLP002, and have not found an answer in how many vials people are using to make a starter. Its kind of my understanding that a starter is used to basically increase the amount of viable yeast cells from a given vial of yeast. So, a starter would take a single vial of 80-100 billion cells, to hopefully the 200+ billon needed to brew your batch. Is this right?? If so, I would only need 1 vial.

Now to the recipe. I dont have it in front of me, but i do know the OG is supposed to be 1.066-1.070. Using the Mr. Malty calc, with a growth factor of 3 (not sure what this means), its a 1.78L starter to make 241 billion cells, from one vial of yeast, using intermittent shaking. Does this seem right?

So can I just make a 1.8L starter, with an OG between 1.030-1.040, pitched with one vial of WLP002, and in 24 hours, place it in the fridge, decant, and pitch to my primary, and I should have the correct amount of healthy yeast to brew the 1.070 OG???

I hope this is the general idea. I have been trying to wrap my head around the whole thing, and it seems easy enough. I just for some reason cant find the right info. I have watched video on starters and read a ton of different things and still had a few questions. I hope you guys can help! Thanks in advance!!

Yes, this looks correct as long as your vial is pretty fresh.

Oh, and go Giants!

That sounds good but I'd wait longer than 24 hours... About 3 days and then long enough in the refrigerator for it to separate. If you don't plan on decanting, then don't bother with putting it in the refrigerator.

Don't get too wrapped around the axle with amounts. You probably only need a basic starter. 2 cups of water to 1/2 cup DME. Pitch one vial and shake it whenever you walk by. You should be fine. Not only will it increase the yeast (hey I like how that sounds) but it acts as an appetizer and gets them "started." There's no way for you to know if you've really got 441 billion cells anyway so don't sweat it too much. if you brew on Saturday make the starter on Wed or Thur.

You don't need to let a starter go for three days. Microbiologist from Wyeast - see about the 1 minute mark on.

If you are pitching the entire starter in, 24 hours is fine. If you plan on decanting you'll want to let it completely attenuate which normally takes about 3 days.

Well, he contradicts that idea in the video and it seems to bear out in my experience. I usually let them go 24 hrs, chill overnight, and get a nice compact cake to pitch. Whatever works for you. On this one I think I'll go with the guy who works with yeast for a living.

If I post a quote or video from someone else who works with yeast for a living who agrees with me will you apologize for being such a ******?

Haha. So, this info helped, but made me confused as well.

Ill just give you my plan. I plan on brewing Thursday. If I make the starter on Tuesday morning, it should be fine right? It sounds like it.

Tues morning: Make starter
Wed afternoon: place in fridge
Thursday (brewday): Take out yeast, decant, let warm to room temp, pitch.

Sound good?? This is all with 1 vial of WLP002. Any need to throw in the second vial? Or would that be way too much yeast??

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/yeast-harvesting-novel-approach-348276/ Since you're making starters, stop paying for yeast

Whoa, dude chill. Sorry if you thought that was being an a**, just trying to pass on another opinion and why I think it's valid. Everyone is always paranoid about their yeast sitting out warm in transit, etc. It makes sense to me not to let the starter sit out warm if it's done, and I seem to get good results this way. As I said, whatever works for you.


Edit: oh whoops, I see you changed your post. Sorry to be a "******" then. And sorry OP, did not mean to hijack this into an argument. I think either way you'll be fine.

http://beersmith.com/blog/2008/04/01/making-a-yeast-starter-for-your-home-brew-beer/

http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter6-5.html

http://www.mrmalty.com/pitching.php

There are many ways to go about it. Your plan sounds good, and just make sure to shake/swirl it every couple hours while you're awake/able. A starter of 1.040ish is what I'd heard was standard in books I've read, up to 1.050ish. I've done much stronger ones, in fact I've got one where I used extra wort from a Belgian Strong recipe and added 2 packs of Abbey Ale II to it (one of which was too old, damn LHBS selling me 4 month old liquid yeast). I let that one go 3 days. I'll put it in my fridge tonight and brew tomorrow afternoon/evening. There's a nice yeast cake on the bottom now and I'm gonna decant all but about a quart of it or maybe 2 quarts since I used a nice wort instead of extract.

Anyway, I think you'll be good with your plan. Just make sure you rewarm the starter before pitching to minimize yeast shock.

earwig said:

If I post a quote or video from someone else who works with yeast for a living who agrees with me will you apologize for being such a ******?

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Still waiting for that quote.

Made the starter. Its about 1800 mL with 1.5 cups DME. I bought a "yeast starter kit" at my LHBS, MoreBeer. It seemed to go smoothly. Hope it works haha. I am planning on brewing Thursday. Is that too much time to wait to pitch? Almost 48 hours? I can brew tomorrow if needed, but prefer Thursday.

SFGiantsFan925 said:

Made the starter. Its about 1800 mL with 1.5 cups DME. I bought a "yeast starter kit" at my LHBS, MoreBeer. It seemed to go smoothly. Hope it works haha. I am planning on brewing Thursday. Is that too much time to wait to pitch? Almost 48 hours? I can brew tomorrow if needed, but prefer Thursday.

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I have been told to pitch "12 to 72 hours" after making the starter. I doubt 48 would be a problem.

I just made my first starter too. I thought about using it after 24 hrs, but it was going CRAZY. It even overflowed a little bit through the foam stopper! Anyway, I started it on Friday and just put it in the fridge today even though there still seems to be a little bit of activity. Next step is to brew my beer on Thursday[my third batch as well ]

Mine is going well so far. After swirling every 20 minutes or so (I had today off haha), it has formed an nice little krausen on top. Seeing as it was 103 today here, it was hard to keep it under 75 degrees in the house. But I think it should be plenty of yeast ot ferment my holiday/ Christmas ale.

SFGiantsFan925 said:

Mine is going well so far. After swirling every 20 minutes or so (I had today off haha), it has formed an nice little krausen on top. Seeing as it was 103 today here, it was hard to keep it under 75 degrees in the house. But I think it should be plenty of yeast ot ferment my holiday/ Christmas ale.

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75F for a starter is totally fine!! Way to go.

Sulli said:

Still waiting for that quote.

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Look in the 2nd url of the post above yours... Step 6. Now **** off

http://www.maltosefalcons.com/tech/yeast-propagation-and-maintenance-principles-and-practices

This is a good read on the subject as well.

pretty weak...

Sulli said:

pretty weak...

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lol 2 examples and I had to do no work to provide them. Do a quick search yourself, plenty of people believe a yeast starter should fully ferment before pitching. The Mr Malty Site just recently edited their info too... Let me find what he said...

Copy paste not cooperating on my phone so here's a screen shot from a q and a from Mr Malty

Where does that say it takes 3 days to fully attenuate?

Sulli said:

Where does that say it takes 3 days to fully attenuate?

Click to expand...

Do you understand that pitching at high krausen means that it is not fully fermented... which is what this discussion is about? I was explaining that I let my starter ferment for 3 days, wait for the yeast to drop, and then refrigerate before decanting and pitching. This is how many people do it. In my experience, there has always still been activity after 24+ hours.

Go back and read my posts in order. Then ask yourself why you're being such a ******. I was talking to chickypad with my comment about the links anyway, not you.

Thanks for clearing that up.

Well, back to the topic please.

I brewed my third ever batch yesterday. A holiday spiced brown ale. Came out great. Was shooting for an OG of 1.068-70 and it came out to be 1.072. Not too bad! I took the starter out of the fridge about an hour before I started the brew process. So, it sat out for about 5 hours total. I decanted about 90% of the wort off the yeast first so there was less to warm up. Made sure it warmed up a bit, but it still felt a bit cold. I pitched it into my wort which was about 74 F. I think the starter may have been a bit cooler than that. It didnt seem to matter. After about 2 hours, the headspace was already full and the blowoff tube was going crazy. Its been about 24 hours since pitching, and its still blowing off a ton. Its crazy. Amazing how fast the yeast got to work. I used WLP002 English Ale yeast. I hope it goes through a complete fermentation. Looked up the yeast and it usually attenuates to 65-70%. A bit lower than 70-80 like WLP001. Oh well. The beer smelled great and the yeast is kickin' ass so far!

A big thanks for all the help for my first starter. I would call it a success! I think I will only use starters from now on.