How to determine starter gravity?

[Steve973]

Tonight I will be making a starter for this weekend's batch, and I was wondering how I should determine the amount of malt to achieve 1.050 for the starter. Or to put it another way, how much water should I add to 1 pound of dry malt extract to achieve a starter with a gravity of 1.050?

Thanks,
Steve

Edit: I just put this into promash. It looks like 1 gallon of water plus 1 lb of dry malt extract gets you pretty close to 1.050. That's a big starter, so I'll probably use a quart of water and a quarter of a pound of extract.

 

[delarob]

I use 1/2 gal for 1/2 lb. Boil 15 min, cool, pitch. Works every time.

 

[clayof2day]

That is a pretty high gravit for a starter. The idea with a starter is that you want to "wake up" the yeast and if you can get some reproduction that's great too. The ideal gravity for encouraging yeast growth and reproduction is between 1.030 and 1.040. If you really want to get into it check out http://www.mrmalty.com for a great discussion on yeast pitching rates and starters.

 

[delarob]

"As a ballpark measurement, use about 6 ounces (by weight) of DME to 2 quarts of water."
"Boil gently for 15 minutes, then let it cool"
"Pitch your yeast into the starter and let it grow. "



From the school of K.I.S.S.
1/2 gal for 1/2 lb. Boil 15 min, cool, pitch.

I use DME consistant with the beer I'm making and I use a dry yeast for my starter. I've used the liquid yeast and have had stuck ferments with them. Wyeast being the most problems. To be fair, the problems I've had were for yeasts aquired via mail. Boil your DME, cool it down and Shake the Sh*t out of it. As soon as the foam subsides, pitch your yeast and stir it. You should get activity within an hour. You'll have Krausen within 5 hours if you kept everything clean and pitched at the right temp. I pitch at around 76 degrees and have yet to have a problem.
I agree that 48 hours is not nesc for a starter to be ready. As soon as my starter has a nice Krausen on it, I dump the whole thing in. I mean, why not? Obviously you've got super activity going on. Get them babies into the wort while their active and watch it take off.

Mr Malty does have some nice info there..

 

[BrooZer]

In How to brew it says to just you water for your starter 15 min prior to brewing. is that wrong?

 

[homebrewer_99]

1/2 C DME and 2 C water...boil 5 mins...cool...

 

[user 574]

1/2 C DME and 2 C water...boil 5 mins...cool...

That's my recipe too, although I boil for 15. If I got a big beer (1.070+) which I rarely do, I'll double it.

 

[user 574]

In How to brew it says to just you water for your starter 15 min prior to brewing. is that wrong?

Can you repeat that? I'm not following.

 

[Madvillain]

Can you repeat that? I'm not following.

I think he means re-hydrating dry yeast, not making a starter

 

[Orfy]

If you mean do this the at the beginning of the brew session then I'd say spot on.
I'm AG so that actually means 4 hours prior to pitching. I add a little sugar or DME to feed it as well. That way I increase my cell count and get a really good start on fermenting.

 

[user 4295]

If you have a scale, using the metric system makes it very easy to make a starter wort of about 1.040 SG. Use a 10:1 water to DME ratio. If you want to make a 2000 ml starter, weigh out 200 grams of DME and add water to get a final volume of 2000 ml's. Every starter that I have done this way has come out to 1.038-1.040 SG. This method is taken directly from Mr. Malty's (Jamil's) website.