Yeast and Yeast Starter Question

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jerryodom

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I'm new to brewing.

In an attempt to make a yeast starter I drove over to the home brew shop to purchase some malt extract. When I told the guy what I wanted to do he handed me a packet of powder that said "yeast starter" on the front of it. So I thought "well this is easy" took it to the house and followed the yeast starter directions as indicated on the home brew talk starter wiki page.

I pitched the yeast 24 hours ago and no signs of fermentation. It was a vial of the WhiteLabs British Ale yeast. So I'm wondering if that yeast starter was indeed a malt packet designed for this purpose? All the packet says is "LD Carlson Yeast Starter Sufficient for 5-10 Gallons of Wine Or Beer". No instructions or ingredients on the packet.

:confused:
 
I am taking it that you boiled this whole packet with how much water? Was it sweet? Did it smell like cereal and or malt?

I just started a starter myself and I use 1/2 cup dried malt extract and 1/2 quart of water which was boiled for 15 minutes with 2 hop pellets and then cooled to 80 F and I used some hefewizen yeast I had saved from a White Labs WLP300 vial to make more yeast. Be sure to shake this good or use oxygen if you have it. Sanitize some heavy aluminum foil for a top. It started in 10 hours. Every once and a while, give it a good shake (holding your hand over the foil). I will then take a bigger 2000 ML flask and make another 1000 ML of wort from DME boiled 15 minutes and pitch the first flask of fermenting yeast into it (big foam krausen). I will keep this at 70 degrees for 1 day and then make my brew from this the following day. I am very careful about being sanitary when I handle the wort and use Starsan (sanitizer) on anything that touches these containers. I will save a small amount of this for future batches of starter.

If you see no foam after 24 hours then the yeast must be dead or your starter was not DME (dried malt extract).
 
Yeah it smelled right when I cooked it.(like wort) I put a bit of it to my tongue and it had a slight sweet taste to it.(I've actually never tasted dry malt extract)


I boiled the packet in about 2 cups of water. I have one other vial I'll pitch and then harvest from it for the other batch of English Ale I had this one for.(guess i'll have to get used to reuse of yeast anyhow)
 
Shake it often and let it sit then. It will either start or not. ??? Keep it 70 to 75 F. If it does not start I would get more yeast from a different batch of yeast and pitch that.
 
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