yeast starter question

I am going to make a starter for my yeast, however my recipe calls for 6 lbs of DME and that is all I have.
So would it hurt to just take the DME necessary to make a starter out of the DME for my recipe?
If I do will it change anything with my beer if when adding my yeast I just pour all of the starter in the carboy?
I get that it will change my OG, but if it's all going into the fermenter eventually it seems to me that it will be the same exact beer.
am I wrong?

 

i've never used extract, but your theory is sound. but if you don't want to use dme you can use sugar or corn sugar, however it is helpful to use the same fermentables for your starter and your full batch, to acclimate the yeast to your wort.

 

I was just thinking about that, how do you make a starter with corn sugar, I have a surplus of that stuff.
That would definitely solve my problem.

 

It won't be the same exact beer because you already used up some of the fermentable a in the starter but since it's a small amount you probably want notice.

You definitely do not want to just use sugar for your starter though, this is not a healthy way to make a healthy cell count of yeast

 

When using table sugar or corn sugar the yeast get acclimated to fermenting simple sugars and have a hard time converting the more complex sugars in the wort. There is a malt "beverage?" that you might be able to find in the grocery store that you can use. - Malto?? I forget the right name. I have never seen it myself.

What is the yeast that you have? If it is a dry yeast you don't want to make a starter. Re-hydrate or just sprinkle it on the wort.

What is the predicted original gravity of the recipe? If it is 1.050 or lower I would just pitch the yeast this time and get what you need to make a starter for the next batch.

 

It's white labs california ale WLP001
The predicted OG is 1.062
Think it would hurt anything to just pitch it without a starter?

 

Not the best idea but it will ferment the beer. Where the problem comes in is that the yeast must first reproduce to cell counts sufficient to ferment the wort, then do the fermentation. Some off flavors can be introduced during this phase.

You don't happen to have any US05 dry yeast on hand do you. It is the same strain.

You could take 100 grams of the DME and boil it in 1 liter of water then pitch the whole starter. The "beer" on the starter is not the best for flavor but it would only be a liter in 5+ gallons.

Assuming 2 week old yeast mrmalty is calling for a 1.74 liter starter - intermittent shaking.

 

Nope, no US05, I'll get that next time though.
Is there a yeast comparison chart that you know of?
I guess I'll just have to use some of my dme and make a starter.
Thanks!

 

Just an update, I decided to just dump the vial of yeast directly into the wort to see how well it will work without a starter.
The OG was 1.061
It worked great, I checked on it when I woke up 16 hours after pitching and there was a little bit of krausen starting to form and about 1 bubble a second in the blowoff tube.
Right now it's been about 20 hours and there is about 3 inches of krausen and it's bubbling like crazy.
So I would say that from my experience you don't really need a starter with white labs yeast as long as the OG isn't too high, and the yeast is fresh.

Next time I will be using US05 dry yeast to compare lag times.

 

it will "work", ie ferment, but it would be "better" with a sufficient amout of yeast. You underpitched by about half. the yeast could stall out before it hits a good FG and/or give off flavors.
cheers!

 

I didn't think about it missing the FG, hopefully it ferments out alright, next time I'll have either dry yeast or the DME to make a starter.
I'd imagine that any off flavors would be covered up by this hop bomb lol.

 

I'm sure it will ferment out just fine, and it's unlikely to have any severe off flavors. A higher pitching rate is simply recommended to create the cleanest beer with the fewest off flavors and the fewest potential problems.

If it were me in your situation, I would have used 100g of your DME to make a starter, and then added 70g of your dextrose to the beer. That would have kept the ABV and FG the same as your recipe, and replacing that small amount of DME with a more fermentable sugar shouldn't have a noticeable effect on the flavor.

 

I was going to do a starter but at the last minute I decided not to, just to experiment, I'm probably going to make this recipe again so I can compare the two, one under pitched and the other pitched correctly.
That's a good idea adding the dextrose to make up for the DME, I'll definitely use that next time a situation like this happens, hopefully it won't though.

 

I just made my first starter. I normally just pour the new brew on the previous yeast cake. I do not use a siphon as there are always issues it seems, so all of my buckets have spigots. Or, I just use a cup or two of the slurry from the yeast cake and rack onto that. Back to the point: I pulled two cups of slurry from my last batch, and one cup went into the fridge, and one cup went into the fermenting bucket. I know, get to the point. I added one cup of water to my bottled slurry, gave it a good shake, and let it settle into two layers of which I poured off the top into my starter jar. I boiled two cups of water with one half a cup of DME cooled it, and poured it into the starter jar. I am amazed! A couple of swirls, and ten minutes later, I have one new inch of yeast forming. Tomorrow when I pitch my new starter into my Chocolate Oatmeal Stout, I'll bet the airlock will be busy in a couple of hours. Kewl, huh?

 

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

I've seen a chart with Wyeast, white labs, and different dry yeasts, but this is pretty good. The link goes to the list of Wyeast products and shows the white labs equivalent. I believe the page contains a link to go the opposite way (white labs list with Wyeast equivalent).

 

I found this chart while I was researching this question.

http://finnhillbrewing.blogspot.com/2010/12/liquiddry-yeast-chart-by-style.html