Alternates for Dry Malt Extract I’m yeast starter?

[lorne17]

Anyone know of something I can use for a successful yeast starter without Dry Malt Extract?
thanks,
Lorne

 

[Kent88]

Wort. After you collect the wort just take a little out, maybe dilute it down a bit to get around 1.030, quickly boil and chill that, then add your yeast. If you preform a mash and batch sparge, maybe just take a little of your last sparge runnings out before combining it with the rest of your wort, quickly boil and chill that.

 

[dawn_kiebawls]

What @Kent88 said. I've started just culling ~1500ml of my second runnings to reserve as a starter for my next batch. I usually plan for my brews to be 3 weeks apart but by making and storing the starter my yeast can last for months when life gets in the way. Cheers!

 

[marc1]

You can also just do a small mash. Try a pound of grain in a gallon of water and see what gravity you're at.

 

[lorne17]

Wort. After you collect the wort just take a little out, maybe dilute it down a bit to get around 1.030, quickly boil and chill that, then add your yeast. If you preform a mash and batch sparge, maybe just take a little of your last sparge runnings out before combining it with the rest of your wort, quickly boil and chill that.

so I don’t have Wort on hand. Can I brew the batch this yeast starter will be for and then leave the wort in my carboy without pitching yeast and let the yeast starter go for 1-2 days before pitching the yeast in that batch of wort?

or is it bad to let the beer sit for a couple days before pitching yeast?

thanks,
Lorne

 

[Yooper]

so I don’t have Wort on hand. Can I brew the batch this yeast starter will be for and then leave the wort in my carboy without pitching yeast and let the yeast starter go for 1-2 days before pitching the yeast in that batch of wort?

or is it bad to let the beer sit for a couple days before pitching yeast?

thanks,
Lorne

You don't want to do that- first, because the OG will be too high for a starter, and secondly you don't want the wort to sit out without yeast in it. If you can't make a starter, hopefully you have enough yeast for the batch. If you live near a Mexican market, you can use malta goya I think.

 

[marc1]

so I don’t have Wort on hand. Can I brew the batch this yeast starter will be for and then leave the wort in my carboy without pitching yeast and let the yeast starter go for 1-2 days before pitching the yeast in that batch of wort?

or is it bad to let the beer sit for a couple days before pitching yeast?

thanks,
Lorne

I wouldn't let it sit for a couple of days un-pitched.

If I didn't have anything and wanted to make a starter, I make some wort from grain, boil it to sanitize, then use that for a starter.
You can make a small amount in a pot on your stove, and use a bag to strain the grain out (like BIAB) or dump it through a strainer to remove the grains after mash.

 

[BigEd]

You don't want to do that- first, because the OG will be too high for a starter, and secondly you don't want the wort to sit out without yeast in it. If you can't make a starter, hopefully you have enough yeast for the batch. If you live near a Mexican market, you can use malta goya I think.

Malta beverage makes a very good yeast starter solution. Goya is the most common brand but there are others. Many big supermarkets stock it and you can also find malta at markets that sell Mexican, Caribbean, and African products.

Dilute two parts malta with one part water to yield a roughly OG 1.040 starter solution. I like to give it a five minute boil, then cool, and it's ready to go. Boiling helps get rid of most of the carbonation and sanitizes the added tap water. There is some sugar in the malta but it has enough actual malt to get the yeast going properly.

 

[Kent88]

so I don’t have Wort on hand. Can I brew the batch this yeast starter will be for and then leave the wort in my carboy without pitching yeast

You can steal some wort from the beer you are brewing for its own starter. If you are brewing with base malts, you can collect some wort during the sparge. Keep an eye on your sparge gravity and take what you need when the gravity gets below 1.035. If you are using extract, just take a little wort that you've mixed up and dilute it to around 1.030. The idea is that the small amount you take should boil and cool faster than the bulk of your wort. You want to pitch the starter as soon as possible so that yeast can become the dominate microbe in your wort, but you can wait a little while before adding your starter.

is it bad to let the beer sit for a couple days before pitching yeast?

A couple days is not a good idea. A couple hours should be fine, but personally I wouldn't push it beyond probably three hours. That said, I've heard of some people who do no-chill and just leave their hot kettle with a lid on and go to sleep, and I'm sure that means that their wort occasionally drops below 120F a long time before they wake up to finish transferring to a fermenter and pitching their yeast. But I still believe you want to pitch that yeast ASAP.

Are you planning this to be a regular part of your process? Or is this just a one-off because you forgot to buy a little extra DME?

 

[hottpeper13]

I do a vitality starter almost always. I take ~1 qt from the BK after 10 min and put it in the freezer. It's cool enough to pitch on the yeast before the end of boil. Knock out to fermenter let sit overnite to get to temp (with the starter sitting next to it) and pitch the whole thing in the morning at high krausen. Every time I do this I have around a 4 hr lag time, unless it's Kviek, then around an hour.