Starter or pitch from the packet?

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dmbnpj

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Is making a yeast starter really necessary to make better beer? So far we have done several batches both extract and AG, and all have come out good by just pitching the yeast directly from the packet.
 
Dry yeast doesn't need a starter. If you need more yeast, just pitch two packets. Cheaper than the DME you'd use to make a starter.

I've had good luck going against the grain and just pitching the smack pack of liquid yeast right into well-aerated wort. It works for me and makes good beer. Is it the best and safest route? Probably not. Would making a starter give me better odds at better beer? Sure.

It really depends on your starting gravity. The higher your OG, the greater the need to make a starter.
 
So all these flasks and stir plates that I see people making are because they have too much time on their hands? ;)

Plus you have to plan on making a starter ahead of time.....planning normally doesn't work for me! ha
 
Are you talking about liquid or dry yeast?

If it's dry you don't need a starter, though many recommend re-hydrating.

If it is liquid, making a starter first insures that your yeast is still alive and viable before you dump it in your beer. You will be less likely to start one of those "is my yeast dead?" threads that are on here every day.

You will also ensure that you have enough yeast usually the tubes and smack packs are a lot less yeast that you really should use for healthy fermentation.

If you look at and use Mr Malty's pitch rate calculator you can see how much yeast you SHOULD be using for the grav of your beer. http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html you wil find that what's in the tubes or smack pack is usually way under what you should be using.

Making a starter also usually means your ber will take off sooner, because the first thing that the little buggers do in the presence of wort (whether in a flask or in a fermenter) is have an orgy to reproduce enough cells to do the job...So it won't take such a long time in the fermenter since they started doing it in the flask.

Additionally it is better for the yeast to consume and reproduce incrementally rather than just dumping them into the fermenter...The yeast will be less stressed out than if you just dump them in.

Stressed out yeast can lead to a lot of off flavors...maybe even (though rare) the dreaded autolysis....Or the curse of 1.030....getting a stuck fermentation because the yeast have bit the dust.

So making a starter proves your yeast is still healthy, allows you to grow enough yeast to do the job, cuts down on lag time, and ensures that you will not get off flavors or stuck ferementations from stressed out yeast.

So no, it's not just that we have "too much time on our hands" it's that we want to make the best and tastiest beer possible. You may have lucked out a few times under pitching, but eventually you may hit a wall, and have it not turn out so good....or possibly you will try it on a recipe you have brewed before and you will notice how cleaner the beer tastes when the yeast aren't so stressed out.
 
Cool, something else to eventually dive into. I skimmed it on "How to brew" by Palmer and it just looks like a lot of extra work. But, doing something else that will eventually lead to better beer is something good to learn.

I just wonder why then on they liquid, Wyeast, smack packages they specifically say "ready to pitch"?
 
Cool, something else to eventually dive into. I skimmed it on "How to brew" by Palmer and it just looks like a lot of extra work. But, doing something else that will eventually lead to better beer is something good to learn.

I just wonder why then on they liquid, Wyeast, smack packages they specifically say "ready to pitch"?

Because a lot of instructions in this hobby are written more to appease people like you who "Think it's too much work" or are part of the "instant gratification generation" so they make a concession to that and sacrifice "quality" over convenience.....And let us pick up the slack when people post :"is my yeast ruined" threads. :D

This is from a great article in byo...

http://***********/stories/recipes/article/indices/58-yeast/1258-plunge-into-liquid-yeast

You could pitch this teaspoon or so of actively fermenting yeast directly to your wort. In fact the package directions might tell you to do just that. Many brewers (including yours truly) did it that way on the first batch or two using liquid yeast. But experienced brewers caution against it. A better plan is to make a starter culture--to create a larger volume of active yeast cells for pitching. And making a starter is a must if you plan to use BrewTek, Yeast Culture Kit, or Yeast Lab products, packaged in the test tube without the sterile wort
activator.

Using a starter culture will increase the number of viable yeast cells you pitch into your wort, decreasing your chances of infection by encouraging a fast start of fermentation.

Plus if you look at BYO's succinct starter instructions, you could see how difficult it would be to get it on one of those tubes. :D

And like you said in your first post, you pitched it as is and it worked fine. It WILL make beer that way, but going the extra step and making a starter will make BETTER beer.

:mug:
 
So, next question, what is your method of making a starter? :)
 
So, next question, what is your method of making a starter? :)

I boil 2cups of water and stir in 1/2 cup of DME. I boil it for a few minutes, they say 15 but I usually just do between 5 and 10 minutes or so.) Let it cool in my sink, Put it in my flask, add sanitized stirbar, then add yeast. Spray some starsan on a piece of tinfoil and crumple it loosely on top of the flask. Put it on my stirpllate and let it go for a couple days.

If I know I need to do a couple feedings t build it up, every couple days I boil up some more water and DME and add it to the flask. I call that feeding the yeasties.

Then on the morning of brew day or the night before I turn off the stirplate and let be. Giving it time to let the yeast flocculate (settle) to the bottom of the flask.

When it's time to pitch, I carefully pour off maybe half of the "beer" on top (decanting) and pour everything else into my fermenter.

If I am harvesting from a bottle of commercial beer, I usually try to get a few bottles of the beer I am harvesting from...Abd I may drink them over a few days, leaving maybe an inch of beer/yeast behind. I usullay then spray sanitizer on the bottles, re-cap them with a sanitized cap and store them in my fridge til harvest day. Then I do the same thing as above, I make up a small amount of wort, and add it to my flask, then I spray the bottles with sanitizer, open them with a sanitized bottles opener and flame the lip, and pour the dregs of the bottles into my flask.

I just harvested some Hoegaarden yeast using 12 bottles of the beer. I got IIRC three mason jars full of the yeast. And when I brew another wit, I'll take one of those mason ars and make a starter out of that.
 
Awesome, did you make your stir plate or buy it somewhere?

I've been wondering how to get yeast from commercial beers. Thats interesting. So, how long will the 3 mason jars of yeast you got last? Do you refrigerate them?
 
Awesome, did you make your stir plate or buy it somewhere?

I've been wondering how to get yeast from commercial beers. Thats interesting. So, how long will the 3 mason jars of yeast you got last? Do you refrigerate them?

I work at a medical school, and I actually scored two of them a couple years ago...the real ones. Mine has a built in heater as well. Whenever they clean out labs a lot of that stuff gets chucked out and then new ones are bought with gran money. I had asked two people to keep their eye out for one, and both came up with them...I gave one of them to a now ex GF for her kids.

Booby M recently made a successful starter for a jar of year old yeast and it was fine...like I said it only takes a few cells of viable yeast to patiently grow into a huge starter.

And yes you do store them in the fridge. My lower shelf has a couple dozen jars in there.
 
So another question, if you get a dry yeast packet, do you need to activate it, or just pitch it into the fermenter dry? And if you do need to activate/rehydrate it, how would you go about doing that?
 
Back to your post where you linked me to the byo.com website. I read through that article and the directions there about making a starter don't include using a stir plate or flask. Which is the better method?
 
Is there any need to buy yeast nutrient when making a starter using the stir plate?

And what size flask do you use?
 
REhydrating it is better. Most yeasts have the instructions on them how to do it, but basically you take aobut 4oz of water at 86-92 degrees F and sprinkle the yeast on top. wait 15 minutes, stir, and pitch.

The starter goes in a flask typically. The flask is then put on a stir plate if you have one.

I've never used yeast nutrient in any of the starters I've made.
 
Back to your post where you linked me to the byo.com website. I read through that article and the directions there about making a starter don't include using a stir plate or flask. Which is the better method?

I think it doesn't really matter if you have one or not, actually. It's probably a matter of preference. The stirplate keeps the yeast in suspension and in contact with the wort.(Though we ARE brewers and therefore we like gizmos, and many even like to make our own gizmos :D) But not everyone has one, and plenty of starters have been made successfully without them.

Neither are flasks....If you look on the web you will see that starters are made in all sorts of stuff...

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Damn I can't find my favorite which is an english pint glass with tinfoil on it. basically any container, glass or plastic that you can sanitize will do. A flask is convenient because you can boil right in it mad scientist style right on your stove or bunson burner. Though since my pyrex flask may be anywhere from 5-50 years old since I got it from work and they do get brittle with age, I don't risk it, and just use a sanitized funnel and boil in a pan.

I've even done them in spagetty sauce and mason jars....
 
And what size flask do you use?

One big enough for your starter. :)

If you're making 1 liter starter, a 1 liter flask will do. If you're making a 2 liter starer...not so much. I have a 1 and 2.

Mr Malty will help you decide how big you need to go, though I typically do 1 liter for under 1.060 and 2 liter above. However, that's just what I'm used to and certainly isn't based on scientific fact.....just based on I've been doing this for a bit and that works for me.
 
So then, typically which are better, dry yeast or the liquid yeast? Because when I order them, it is 5+ dollars more to get liquid yeast.
 
That's kinda a new thread and pretty well covered in here if you search, probably over in the yeast forum. For me, it depends on the style. I make belgians and kolsch's often, and these greatly benefit from using a liquid yeasts specific to that style. However, a trusty pack of danstar notty ferments just about everything else I make.
 
So then, typically which are better, dry yeast or the liquid yeast? Because when I order them, it is 5+ dollars more to get liquid yeast.

it's not a matter of "better: or worse, they both serve their purposes, they both have the potential to make great beer....

You will find that it is really just a matter of preference. Dry yeasts these days are just as good as liquid in terms of quality and the science involved in growing it. Many commercial breweries use dry. And liquid has more varietes then dry, which is great for yeast driven styles of beers like Belgians, where the yeast contributes actual flavor components, but they require starters. For basic clean ales many, the dry yeasts are exactly the same strains as the liquid ones (like the chico strain) so many people use dry for many beers, and use liquid in others.

For 90% of my beers I use dry...most of them are with us-05....since it's a neurtal ale strain and it's the same as several comprable liquid versions.

There's a a ton of threads hashing this back and forth...but really int he 21st century, no one type is "better" than the other.

I have found that a lot of new brewers especially, THINK they HAVE to use liquid yeast, but in reality most ales can be made with Notty, Windsor, Us-05, Us-04 and many lagers with basic Saflager.....7-8 bucks a pop for liquid as opposed to $1.50-2.50 for dry, with more cell count, is imho just a waste of money for the majority of a brewer's recipe bank...most commercial ales us a limited range of strains, and those liquid strains are really the same strains that the afore mentioned dry strains cover, for example Us-05 is the famed "Chico strain", so if you are paying 7-8 bucks for Wyeast 1056 American/Chico Ale Yeast, and you STILL have to make a starter to have enough viable cells, then you are ripping yourself off, in terms of time and money....

But like I said for yeast driven beers like Belgians I will use specific liquid strains, but for the majority of my beers I go with dry.....

Here's some info here, https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/dry-yeast-profiles-descriptions-131810/
 
Thank you for the information Revvy. I am very new at this, and it is nice to have somebody who can answer all of my noob questions, and not make me feel like as much of an idiot. And I do apologize for thread jacking. I'll go sit in the corner and be quiet again.
 
Now that would defeat the purpose of the board..ask away.

Revyy, Yooper, et al are a great source! I bet in no time you'll be answering threads as much as you post questions.
 
That's a fine example of "ask 10 brewers the same question and get 10 different answers".

Bottom line is, its' much harder now to F up your beer when pitching yeast than it was 20 years ago. Keep things clean, watch your temps, and get yeast in there and you'll have beer. As you make more batches and try different things you'll end up doing what works best for you and your tastes.
 
So when we talk about a "1 liter starter", is that 1 liter of yeast "sludge", or 1 liter total (including the sludge and the beer). If it's the former, a 1 liter starter would have to be made in a much bigger container, no?
 
So when we talk about a "1 liter starter", is that 1 liter of yeast "sludge", or 1 liter total (including the sludge and the beer). If it's the former, a 1 liter starter would have to be made in a much bigger container, no?

I make a 750ml starter in a 1L flask all the time. You don't get a ton of krausen with a starter, typically.

I also have done it in a growler with some sanitized foil over the top, too.

When I make lagers, I usually put the starter in the fridge until brewday and when the gallon of spent wort (lagers usually require a bigger starter) is clear and the thick yeast is on the bottom, I decant the spent wort to get rid of the yucky oxidized beer on top. For a smaller starter, it's generally not necessary but you can do that if you want.

It's usually recommended to either pitch the starter at "high krausen", or to let it ferment out completely before adding it to your fresh wort, so there are a couple of options. I never seem to catch mine at high krausen so I just make it a few days in advance of my brewday, and then let it finish up.
 
Good info here. Just started my first AG- the brown ale in Palmer's book. I pitched the smack pack just like the package said and now I'm wondering if the beer is dead. Probably not. I've bookmarked this thread so I can refer to it when I'm making my first starter for the next boil. Thanks again.
 
I cant find were i read it (Edit: found it) But some one did an experiment on how much Yeast cell grow using different techniques for the starter, and sitr plate was by far the best method. There are several DIY stir plates on the DIY threads, and this is the cheapest i could find online, Brewershardware i have been searching for one for the last week and it seems to be the best deal.

Edit:it was on Maltose Flacons, here is a graph showing the outcome.
image002.gif
 
I finally got everything I needed and started yesterday trying to harvest the yeast from some Hoegarden. It has been on the stirplate now for more than a day. Should I be seeing some white buildup on the bottom? Because so far I have seen nothing but some foam on top.
 
Are you talking about liquid or dry yeast?

If it's dry you don't need a starter, though many recommend re-hydrating.

And, incredibly, according to the Dry yeast faq at Danstar, you don't need to aerate the wort before using dry yeast !


"I always aerate my wort when using liquid yeast. Do I need to aerate the wort before pitching dry yeast?

No, there is no need to aerate the wort but it does not harm the yeast either. During its aerobic production, dry yeast accumulates sufficient amounts of unsaturated fatty acids and sterols to produce enough biomass in the first stage of fermentation. The only reason to aerate the wort when using wet yeast is to provide the yeast with oxygen so that it can produce sterols and unsaturated fatty acids which are important parts of the cell membrane and therefore essential for biomass production. "

http://www.danstaryeast.com/faq.html

Maybe this is why dry yeast seems to take off so fast!
 
I finally got everything I needed and started yesterday trying to harvest the yeast from some Hoegarden. It has been on the stirplate now for more than a day. Should I be seeing some white buildup on the bottom? Because so far I have seen nothing but some foam on top.

Still wondering about this. Now it looks like I have just been spinning crap in a flask for several days now?
 
Still wondering about this. Now it looks like I have just been spinning crap in a flask for several days now?

Take it off the stirplate and put it in your fridge. That white scum on the bottom will be your yeast. If you started with the yeast from one bottle, there won't be much but there will be some. You can pour off the liquid after it's all settled out and add more wort to get more yeast.
 
I used about 10 bottles. I guess I will just have to let it settle and see what I got.
 
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