Considering doing my first starter

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Sparkncode

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Thinking of doing my first starter.

I'm going to have a go at brewing a 9.5% ABV belgium tripel on the weekend using mangroves jacks M31 belgium tripel dry yeast which i foolishly only ordered one pack of and its not worth the courier for another pack.

Liquid yeast is pretty expensive here so I'm using a dry yeast for my first belgium

They claim one pack to 23L but playing arround with beersmith with the ABV that high its saying two packs which I think makes sense

I'm brewing in 4 days so thinking i might do a starter despite them generally not being done for dry yeast.

Not sure how big a starter i would do.
I have a 2L conical flask or a 5L glass fermenter so could use either.

I have got magnetic stir bars but haven't made a magnetic stirer yet although I can assemble one pretty quick if necessary.

Tomorrow is a public holiday here so I have a day to get things sorted.

One snag might be I only have an induction cooktop so I will need to boil DME in a pot then pour through a sanitised funnel. Of course it will need to be allowed to cool first.

Should I do this?
And suggestions?
 
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I think you'll do fine with what you have described and I will try to make it even simpler.

First, shaken starters are as good (if not better) than stirred ones. For this first starter don't worry about a stirplate. And yes, boil 100g of DME in a liter of water for ten minutes. Cool it and pour thru a sanitized funnel into either vessel, though I like the bigger size. Denny Conn had suggested the bigger vessel yields more vitality when the volume is around 20-25% of the vessel size.

Introduce the yeast and shake it like it stole something!! Cover it with a stopper that has a hole and cover it with tinfoil, sanitized of course.

Every time you walk by it you should man handle it like you did initially. In 18-24 hours it should have plenty of yeast at the bottom. If you want you could add another infusion of wort of the same amount or even half as much.

I have had great results and fermentations ever since I began doing this about 5 years ago. Good luck!
 
I prefer to use a larger starter. 5 gallons of wort seems to be the right amount.

Aerate your wort well and pitch that single packet of dry yeast. It is pretty likely to attenuate just as well or better than if you made a starter from the dry yeast. My high gravity beers always do.
 
I stop doing "starters" and brew a 6%ABV beer to build up a yeast cake. Never have to guess if there's enough yeast and I get 5 extra gallons out of the deal. This is how I get to 12% stouts. For next time maybe..
 
Thanks for the comments. I went with a 3L starter and shaking regularly.

Since i don't need another batch of beer I wasn't going to brew a batch to harvest yeast this time. I might in future as i have used yeast from one beer in another before.
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Hopefully it works ok. Gives me an excuse that I have to brew on the weekend LOL.
 
Thanks for the comments. I went with a 3L starter and shaking regularly.

Since i don't need another batch of beer I wasn't going to brew a batch to harvest yeast this time. I might in future as i have used yeast from one beer in another before.

Hopefully it works ok. Gives me an excuse that I have to brew on the weekend LOL.

Haha! Yeah I guess none of us truly "need" another batch! I'll do this method for stouts/Belgiums..something that can age a while. The other fun thing is once the yeast cake is built I'll split the next batch onto 2 smaller ones and experiment. This is how I did my 1st peanut butter stout...5gal of PB-stout seemed like a lot.

Sure it'll be fine!
 
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I gave ut a good shakr this morn8ng before work and lots of co2 camr out of solution, foamed up really well. Less of that this evening and ive shaken it a couple of times after work.

I guess I will see how it looks in the morning before I go to work (friday here). Probably put it in my kegerator to cool and drop the yeast so I can decant it either Saturday or Sunday depending on when I decide to brew
 
Just got home from work and it looks like the starter yeast has started to drop out as its still pretty clouldy.

I will put it in the kegerator over night but it looks like its probably good to brew with tomorrow.
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I guess this means my starter worked.
This is about 4 hours after pitching.
the fermentation chamber has pulled the temperature down to 18C from the about 20C I managed with the plate chiller.

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I just boiled 400g of dextrose in a small amount of water to sanitise then cooled and added this today while the yeast was active.
I wasn't happy with the lower OG I got so decided to add some more dextrose to fix it. I figure its acceptable for a belgium Tripel so why not.

The airlock was bubbling well and after I opened the bucket to add the sugar and closed it it resumed bubbling straight away so I'm not worried about oxygen getting in due to the active fermentation.

I think I will draw up a label on the computer for this one since I'm bottling it rather than kegging that I have been doing for about 10 months.
Bottling was a pain when I had to do it for every batch but I'm not so worried doing it for occasional high ABV batches or batches I want to age. When its every batch its a chore but when its for something a bit different and the other batches are in kegs I think its not so bad.
 
Bottling was a pain when I had to do it for every batch but I'm not so worried doing it for occasional high ABV batches or batches I want to age. When its every batch its a chore but when its for something a bit different and the other batches are in kegs I think its not so bad.

Bottle got 10x easier when I started rinsing bottles right after use. They're basicly clean so just one more rise and starsans before use. I'll tap the spigot and rise out the starsans before filling. Never a problem. What kills me with kegging is all the rinsing, cleaning, sanitizing lines/taps/kegs components. In this way bottling is easier. I only keg because I love to have 10 different styles laying around and I don't have that much bottling capacity.
 
Bottle got 10x easier when I started rinsing bottles right after use. They're basicly clean so just one more rise and starsans before use. I'll tap the spigot and rise out the starsans before filling. Never a problem. What kills me with kegging is all the rinsing, cleaning, sanitizing lines/taps/kegs components.
Yep the immediate rinse of the bottles does make things easy. Also the fill a 30L bucket with pbw and soak bottles then rinse with the bottle washer that goes on a tap is good too. I still find kegging better for most things although i probably don't clean the lines as often as I should.
 
I used true Beverage Silver impregnated lines. Fought an awful flavor from the kegs for about a year. Had to pour the 1st pint out if been sitting a while. After some research, switched from Depot poly to those lines and man it was like night and day! My Keggorator crapped out about 6 months ago so have a make shift until I get the brew pub built, hopefully next year.

RIP..
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Yeah taste from beet lines is annoying, I had some beer line that had a vynal taste to the first glass of the day. I swapped to smaller diameter lines from another supplier to help with balancing and its solved the taste issue.

Mine is just cheap stuff from homebrew shops, they don't have much choice down here in New Zealand. I could try and track down higher quality ones but so far the 4mm stuff is fine. The small diameter really helps with balamcing as it avoids big coil of line in the full kegerator.

I would like to make a manifold so I can connect all my beer lines together for cleaning as it would help but house renovations currently have priority over homebrew for money.

Just checked the fermenter.
Still bubbling but slowed down.
I'm not really sure what to expect from a 9.5ABV beer with the M31 yeast fermenting as its my first at that abv and first use of that yeast. I will wait till the weekend before I mske any measurments.

It did get fed 400g of dextrose a day or two after pitching so its about 3 days since last sugar added so i guess ok.

This being a belgium yeast and the higher ABV its a bit of a learning curve.

I think i will leave it in the fermentation chamber for all of next week to let it finish up. I do want to use the chamber to brew a porter in the next few weeks.
 
Yeah taste from beet lines is annoying, I had some beer line that had a vynal taste to the first glass of the day. I swapped to smaller diameter lines from another supplier to help with balancing and its solved the taste issue.

Mine is just cheap stuff from homebrew shops, they don't have much choice down here in New Zealand. I could try and track down higher quality ones but so far the 4mm stuff is fine. The small diameter really helps with balamcing as it avoids big coil of line in the full kegerator.

I would like to make a manifold so I can connect all my beer lines together for cleaning as it would help but house renovations currently have priority over homebrew for money.

Just checked the fermenter.
Still bubbling but slowed down.
I'm not really sure what to expect from a 9.5ABV beer with the M31 yeast fermenting as its my first at that abv and first use of that yeast. I will wait till the weekend before I mske any measurments.

It did get fed 400g of dextrose a day or two after pitching so its about 3 days since last sugar added so i guess ok.

This being a belgium yeast and the higher ABV its a bit of a learning curve.

I think i will leave it in the fermentation chamber for all of next week to let it finish up. I do want to use the chamber to brew a porter in the next few weeks.
One thing I learned over the years is oxygenation is ultra important with big beers. I dump in/out between sanitized containers several times before pitching yeast. If the beer is under attenuated in the end, that's the likely cause.

With anything over 10% I have a specific procedure that includes brewing a 6%ish beer first. Guaranteed to have plenty of yeast! When ready to keg/bottle that beer, brew up the big beer. After keg/bottle and new wort cools, same as above for oxygenation. However now split the wort into 2 fermenters. This will give plenty of head space.

This is very important. After 12hrs, open the fermenters up and reoxygenate. Close back up and let it ferment out. I give those big ones 3 weeks at least to ferment out. The fun thing is you can experiment with the 2 or recombine them in the end. Great stuff!

Oh, and feel the hou$e remodling pain. We're at an AirBnB while that happens this week.
 
Thanks pianoman,
I will definitly take your high abv advice on board for the next brew. This one got pretty decent aeration as i pumped it into the fermentor bucket. Lots of splashing etc. Foamed up well. I do have an air stone but havent got everything setup to use that but i like the idea of adding more oxygen the next day.

I definitly want to get a good understanding of the high abv fermentation before trying more than the target 9.5% of this batch.

I checked on it again today and its still bubbling away. I might check the gravety over the weekend to see how it is doing at the one week mark. I will definitly leave it in the fermentor till its really stable as going into bottles at over 3 vols i don't want any unplanned fermentation.

Ok on being out of your place for the reno. That sounds a real hassel.
Mine has been done by my dad and i over that last 3 or 4 years so dragged bit done for reasonable cost as i had money available. Total reclad, double glaze and insulate and new bathroom and kitchen on my 110sq meter house that was built in 1972. Done in winter due to when my dad has been available. The other year it was 1/3 of the windows out and the holes covered with thin plywood on a night that got below 0 C so doing it this way has disadvantages too.

Now all windowd but one ranch slider are now double glazed now and with insulation in the walls the place is a lot warmer and easier to heat.

In a few months that door gets replaced with double glazed bifold doors. Its a 3.6m gap and those doors are really expensive here hence reduced homebrew spending for a bit.
 
Doing it yourself w/help is the way to go for sure. My home, bought in 1995 and built in 1972, was remodled 90% by me and my boys as they got older. But I can't do the roof, HVAC system or completely rewire from aluminum to copper. In addition, wife wanted professionals to do the spare bathroom as I always end up with flaws. So this is costing $60,000us. There's still work that needs done I could do, but both me and the youngest boy have injuries..mine will not heal unless I'm bedridden for months so between a rock and a hard space. In addition, working 70hr/week just to pay for the damn thing. Adding insult to injury my step-daughter is a useless POS so we are now in care of our 9yr old and 3yr old grandkids. The 3yr has disabilities. Not where I wanted to be at 50...but that's life.

Hoping to get a few brews in soon for the summer season. Mostly 6% and lower but by September-October I'll be doing the bigger stouts. Good luck on your remodel!
 
I decided to check the gravity today, 1 week from pitching.
Its looking good as you can see.

Pretty cloudy but drawn from the bucket fermenter tap which doesn't help.

Hints of banana in the sample and not too much alcohol hotness.
Tasted pretty good but from the sample effects I suspect I shouldn't bottle this in 750ml bottles LOL. This combined from comments from a friend at work who brewed a tripel a few weeks before me with similar ABV.

I am going to leave it in the fermenter maybe another week as I want it really stable before I bottle but looking good at this point.

I started fermenting at 18C and after 3 days began slowly raising it to 22C where its currently sitting. Once I decide its ready I will of course cold crash and then bottle it.

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Doing it yourself w/help is the way to go for sure. My home, bought in 1995 and built in 1972, was remodled 90% by me and my boys as they got older. But I can't do the roof, HVAC system or completely rewire from aluminum to copper. In addition, wife wanted professionals to do the spare bathroom as I always end up with flaws. So this is costing $60,000us. There's still work that needs done I could do, but both me and the youngest boy have injuries..mine will not heal unless I'm bedridden for months so between a rock and a hard space. In addition, working 70hr/week just to pay for the damn thing. Adding insult to injury my step-daughter is a useless POS so we are now in care of our 9yr old and 3yr old grandkids. The 3yr has disabilities. Not where I wanted to be at 50...but that's life.
The trick is being able to hide the flaws. I have had to be less precise in some things as my engineering background wants everything accurate but the old house isn't straight enough for that LOL. the 70h work a week doesn't sound fun. I'm normally 40h weeks and I sitll don't have enough time for what I want to do.

Injurys suck, I managed to break my left leg through the bottom of the knee and damage my shoulder partway through my renovations coming off my ebike badly (Showing off to nephews popping wheelies LOL) but luckily my dad got stuck in and got bits done while I couldn't help. I can now do most stuff since my shoulder was fixed but my knee now has arthritis due to the injury and I get cortisone injections every 3 months to help and long term its a knee replacment. It only lasts about 2.5 months so its extra pain killers in between.

I did paint the soffit on one side of my house one handed due to my shoulder while high on pain killers wondering why the scaffold was wobbling... (it wasn't the scaffold LOL)

Definitely sad you have to care for your grandkids but great that you are doing it.

The 60000usd is a big chunk of cash. I worked out about $50,000NZD, 1NDZ = about 0.7USD to do all the recladding and double glazing and bathroom ourselves just for materials etc. I didn't go over the top in the bathroom, just more modern no leaks but did install a spa bath which is great although I did have to replace the floor in the bathroom as the old one was chipboard and had got way too wet in places and fell apart with a little rotten framing below it..
 
A significant part of the house but happy with the result and far cheaper than a new house with no restrictive covenants. Looks much nicer with the modefn fibre cement based weatherboards than it did with the old asbestos containing fibre cement sheets. Way warmer than it use to be.

After last evenings sampling i left a little bit in the bottom of the test tube and the way it has cleared up gives me great hope that given till next weekend with a cold crash this should come good. I only have time to bottle on weekends so its either next weekend or a whole week later although I guess it should be fine to sit on the yeast cake for 3 weeks total if i don't get it cold crashed in time. The sample tasted good enough I don't want to rush it.

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I decided to order some 330ml homebrew bottles to put some of this beer in since the only suitable bottles I have are 750ml and after the drinking the sample the other day I decided being able to just have one glass rather than having to get through a couple with the higher ABV would be nice.
I should have them tomorrow if I'm lucky.

A bit of a trade off as smaller bottles is a bit more work on bottling day but then there is more likley to be some bottles left in a year to see how it ages.

These are proper long neck thick walled bottles designed for bottle carbonation etc. Cheaper than buying enough craft beer to collect bottles.

I do have a heap of 330ml bottles but being reused mass market single use bottles they are way too thin to try over 3vols of CO2 in.

I think I'm going to monitor for changes in gravity between thursday and saturday. Probably just using the refractometer looking for change then do an fg reading with the hydrometer before bottling this comming weekend if stable otherwise the weekend after.

I'm not really sure how low this yeast could take my tripel. It was pretty low saturday. Its right on beersmiths estimated FG but since the yeast is in the real world i want to be sure its happy.
Saturday is two weeks since brewday and it would be nice to free up the fermentation chamber but not at the expense of bottle bombs.
 
The airlock on this is still bubbling several times a second. I guess its got more to do... Its already at 9.5%. Taking the gravity sample probably roused the yeast a bit based on the sediment that came out. The slowly bringing up to 21C has probably helped. Oh well I keep an eye on it towards the end of the week.
No great loss if I have to wait another week. I would prefer that to exploding bottles. Just means I cant brew for another week if thats the case.

I had 6 dozen new 330ml bottles arrive by courier this morning so I have everything I need to bottle. Now I just need the yeast to finish up. The atmospheric pressure hasn't changed much so I assume the yeast is still active by the bubbling. How low have people seen Mangrove Jacks M31 yeast go?

I have a stainless steel bottling wand I brought before I went to kegs so I'm looging foward to see how well it works. I might have to make a hose to connect it to the bottling bucket rather than direct to the tap though.
 
I've never uses that yeast. Bubbleing could be outgassing. I wouldn't touch it anymore and just start cold crash at day 21. Bottle a couple days later. You'll be fine.
 
Yep, its getting another week.
A wet weekend forcast combined with and my trashed knee being quite achey over the last few days I didn't bother checking on it.
The knee needs a rest so i carrying the beer inside for bottling wouldn't be good this weekend.
I just need to remember to cold crash the beer late next week so I can bottle that weekend.

I might try and combine an all grain brew day and a bottling day for the first time next weekend.
 
I decided to create a label for this beer since its being bottled.
Apart from changing you to your in the bottom part this should do when printed at a suitable size for 330ml bottles.

I do do 2.5g batches sometimes and yep easier to carry. Even the 19L 5g ones arn't too bad but the 23L 6g batches especially when the knee is having a bad week are not so good.

Managed to rest my knee over the weekend and its settled down a bit so hopefully its all go for bottling next weekend.

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I just took another sample. The gravity hasn't moved so its set to cold crash down to 3C for the weekend. Its resulted in a bananaey slightly spicey easy drinkable beer...

It could be a little dangerous as I could drink it as fast as coke LOL.
It will be interesting to see what the carbonation does to it. No hint of alcohol hottness so definitely sneaky.

Due to a combination of circumstances I must bottle it on the weekend because the cortisone for my knee is wearing off slowly and will be totally ineffective by the middle of next month going by past experience so best its done by then plus I have been allocated dishes duty at work for next week unloading the dishwashers and cleaning the main canteen used buy production which will really annoy my knee but they want everyone to do it so I'm of the opinion if I can't write software (my main job) due to pain killers due to assigned task its not my problem LOL.

The dishes thing isn't great in that I managed to annoy my knee a week ago and it took the whole weekend to settle down going careful on it and the extra standing and moving is enough to annoy my knee.
 
I probably shouldn't have drunk the sample after a three other 5.5% beers...

I had a couple of glasses of my motueka toffee pale ale with my evening meal and then decidrd to check on my nelson sauvin smash with a glass of that.

The difference between those two beers is huge and caused by the hops. Totally different flavours. The toffee malt in the motueka one is interesting but the hops have the biggest effect.

Definitly get the white wine flavours from the nelson sauvin. I do prefer motueka one out of the two but nothing wrong with the nelson sauvin beer either.

Oh well just makes the nightly pain killer more effective but that makes the beer more effective too lol... should sleep well
 
Cooled down to 3C and looking like all the unwanted stuff has dropped out through the white bucket. It can sit until saturday for bottling.
 
Bottling done, I got 64 x 330ml bottles. Quite a bit of yeast etc so a bit more waste as i didn't want to suck too much of that with the syphon.

Now I'm hoping that the priming suger mixed well and that the bottles are ok with the higher carbonation.

I used a stainless bottling wand for the first time. Did a nice job but i think its slightly fatter than my plastic one so slightly more headspace but hard to compare as i use to do 750ml bottles and theae are 330ml long necks.

They are now in a safe place, the kitchen floor which has vinal so any bottle failures will be easier to clean up...

200g of dextrose used for priming.

As usual felt bad about pouring out nice looking yeast onto the lawn but i haven't setup to store it yet and being a 9.5% beer I'm not sure harvesting would be sensible anyway.
 
As usual felt bad about pouring out nice looking yeast onto the lawn but i haven't setup to store it yet and being a 9.5% beer I'm not sure harvesting would be sensible anyway.

This is when I brew another and after chilling, throw it onto the yeast cake. That way I don't feel like im wasting. [emoji2]
 
Just cracked open the part bottle (2/3rd full just to see how thge carbonation is going to see if i need to warm it up a bit as its been fairly cool over the last few days, nice pop but the beer is pretty flat, I didn't cool it down to have it absorb, more of a curiosity thing.

I drunk it after a couple of glasses of may 5.5% nelson sauvin smash on an empty stomach after work and its an excellent painkiller LOL. Tastes good and no real hint of the alcohol so super sneaky! I think its going to be great once its fully carbonated provided the bottles don't explode.
 
If anyone is woundering the xray i used for the label is of my left knee 3 years ago when I broke my leg. 7 screws and a plate from that oopsie plus arthritus from where it healed forming a bump which is grinding the cartilage up.

Now I'm waiting for it to get bad enough for replacment to be worth the risk etc. Not fun.
 
I edited a introduction and grain to glass video of this brew and uploaded it onto youtube.

The editing is a bit rough as i was short on time and learning how to use the kdenlive video editor on linux.



The beer came out good. Definitly a little sneaky alcohol wise. The alcahol is well hidden byt definitly leaves you with a glow.
 
Had some feedback on this beer.

My Dad tried it when he visited the other week and asked for half a dozen to take to share with his friends as he thought it was good (gave him a dozen). And he dropped off two dozen at my brothers place that they just moved in to(sent him it as a house warming present / after move drink) and good feedback from there too.

Always good to have feedback from others. I thought it was pretty good but you never know until others try.
Its passed the family test so I think I will give a few of my friends bottles to try now.

Its good to give some of this away as I really had too many bottles of 9.5% beer on hand. Now room for more different brews. Kept plenty for myself.

I'm really pleased for my first 9.5%ABV beer and first belgian tripel and first starter and first use of M31 yeast. I made the recipe in beersmith using other recipies for guidance and used local gladfields malt. Even the first time i havr ised czeh sazz.

kind of interested to try the recipie with motueka as the hop and put a bit more in late some time.

I had a dose of cortisone put in my knee last friday so my knee is settling down now but renovations will be ramping up so brew might be a bit limited over the next two months that the cortisone works. Bound to squeeze in a batch or two but i doubt thry will be high ABV ones as helpers need more session beers that beers like the tripel.
 

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