my yeast starter is worrying me

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KingPing

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I made a yeast starter yesterday using a smack pack and LME. I had smacked the pack a few hours prior to adding it to the starter, and it seemed like it was already ballooning up, so my yeast should be good.

It's now been about 26 hours since I finished the starter, and there doesn't seem to be much activity or any visible new growth. I'm using tin foil to cover the bottle I'm using so I can't check for bubbling of an airlock, but yesterday when I would swirl the mixture it would foam up nicely. It still does that right now, just not nearly as much.

Is this normal? I was hoping that it would be ready for me to brew tonight, but should I wait another day or two?
 
KingPing said:
I made a yeast starter yesterday using a smack pack and LME. I had smacked the pack a few hours prior to adding it to the starter, and it seemed like it was already ballooning up, so my yeast should be good.

It's now been about 26 hours since I finished the starter, and there doesn't seem to be much activity or any visible new growth. I'm using tin foil to cover the bottle I'm using so I can't check for bubbling of an airlock, but yesterday when I would swirl the mixture it would foam up nicely. It still does that right now, just not nearly as much.

Is this normal? I was hoping that it would be ready for me to brew tonight, but should I wait another day or two?
Click to expand...

Hey KingPin,
What volume was your starter and what was the OG? Me thinks from what you said, it's already done its do......
 
it sounds to me like you'll be fine. I normally use 3qt. apple juice containers for my starters because I can fit a bung and an airlock in them. Normally I see krausen, but sometimes I don't. When I swirl them up I get foam like you have described. I've pitched those many a times and normally have serious fermentation within 4-12 hours.

No worries, just pitch it!
 
I didn't think it was necessary to take a gravity reading for a starter, so obviously I didn't take one. As for the volume, I used 16 oz. water with 1/2 cup LME, though I think that a good amount of the water boiled off as the mixture seemed to thicken up a a little bit towards the end of the boil (boiled for just under 20 min.) and it also became more bubbly than it had been for the previous 17 min. or so of the boil, I almost want to describe it as frothy a little bit, but I don't know if that would be accurate.

Just from looking at the volume (it hasn't changed at all since I finished making it) I would estimate it is about 12 oz. of liquid.
 
Starters do best at a sg of ~ 1.040. Yours was more than that, but no worries. Depending on the yeast strain the 1/2 cup of lme was snarfed up by the whole smack pack like a bedtime snack. Pitch it. Good luck.......:)
 
Thanks for all your help guys. Now I have something to do tonight!

I figured I was just having first batch jitters, so now I'll just RDWHAHB, though I'll have to substitute a HB for a commercial, at least for the next few weeks.
 
You're good, it's probably done already. I found that if you til the container of your starter you will see bubble's hitting the upwardside, like a fizzy drink.
 

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