yeas mishap

ok guys, so I created a starter in a 1/2 gallon growler with 1 liter of wort (wyeast 3068).... I spun it once an hour and it's going good. however this last time I lost my footing and on the tile nad it "jolted" in my hand. before I know it my growler turned into a volcano. I lost about a 3rd of the liquid in the subsequent geyser. is there any way to use what's left or am I SOL and buy another packet of yeast or am I good with what I have left (It's been replicating for about 12 hours)

Depends - how soon do you need it? You can grow more cells with more wort and more time.

TimpanogosSlim said:

Depends - how soon do you need it? You can grow more cells with more wort and more time.

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well, I don't NEED it , just was planning on brewing tomorrow morning, if not I can wait, I'm unemployed so I have all the time in the world

by growing more yeast cells would I just boil up a 1/4 cup DME and a cup of water to create a little more wort and pour into the growler to get back to around the same liquid volume I had before and leave it for another day?

I'm not an expert on yeast growth, but you could use the mrmalty calculator to determine a ballpark of how far away you are from your pitching needs

TimpanogosSlim said:

I'm not an expert on yeast growth, but you could use the mrmalty calculator to determine a ballpark of how far away you are from your pitching needs

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yeah, that's what I used to find that I needed a liter of starter. I just wasn't sure about how to go about building up more past the initial creation of the starter (what process and how long to wait now etc)

well, the basic process is the same. malt extract + water + yeast + time = more yeast.

But i don't have enough information or knowledge to say how much. hopefully someone else will chime in.

TimpanogosSlim said:

well, the basic process is the same. malt extract + water + yeast + time = more yeast.

But i don't have enough information or knowledge to say how much. hopefully someone else will chime in.

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cool, thanks at the very least for calming my beating heart that I needed to go out and do a 40 minute drive for another yeast packet. If I can save this batch of starter I'll be more than happy.

Try to figure out how much volume you lost and add that much fresh wort and you should be fine. What OG do you expect on the batch you are brewing with this starter?

Stauffbier said:

Try to figure out how much volume you lost and add that much fresh wort and you should be fine. What OG do you expect on the batch you are brewing with this starter?

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ok, sounds simple enough. It's about 1.5 cups of liquid lost from a 1 liter of wort/yeast mixture. (little over a 3rd of the batch). the OG of the recipe is 1.049


so for 1.5 cups of liquid I'll probably need about 1.75 ounces of DME (unless I'm wrong),


EDIT: Boiled the 1.5 cups of wort with about 1.7 ounces of dme... cooled down and mixed with the rest and re sealed with sanitized foil. gonna give it another 24 hours before I even begin to pitch.

Chances are with an OG as low as 1.049 you didn't even need to add more wort, but it certainly can't hurt. Those smack packs are considered pitchable for gravity under 1.060.. Making a starter for batches under 1.060 is still a good thing to do, but not totally necessary depending on the beer and the age of the yeast. You'll be fine to pitch it tomorrow..

Stauffbier said:

Chances are with an OG as low as 1.049 you didn't even need to add more wort, but it certainly can't hurt. Those smack packs are considered pitchable for gravity under 1.060.. Making a starter for batches under 1.060 is still a good thing to do, but not totally necessary depending on the beer and the age of the yeast. You'll be fine to pitch it tomorrow..

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ok, thanks, sorry I was going off the Mr.Malty calc who said that I'd need 1.5 smack packs to pitch into a 5 gallon batch (or 1 liter of starter), well I'll probably start tomorrow evening (I go to sleep at 4:00 am) ... first brew so I'm nervous and excited at the same time

You were doing the right thing by making the starter. MrMalty and Yeastcalc.com are good tools. Even though Wyeast and White Labs call their yeast pitchable under 1.060 it's still best to make a starter.