made my 1st starter yeast today

[Gordzilla]

I made my first starter today. Heres what i did tell me if i did anything wrong

1.sanitized everything i was gonna use (thermomiter, plastic jar/lid, wisk, etc)
2.boiled 3.5cups of water and added 1/2cup of light golden DME
3.allowed to boil for 15min stirring constantly
4.chilled in a ice bath in the sink brought wort down to 68degrees
5.poured wort into plastic jar and added my yeast vial (white labs)
6.shook the heck out of the jar the loosened the lid a little to allow CO2 to escape
7.Put it aside


I plan on letting this sit for 24-36 hrs until i go to bed tomorrow night when i will put it in the refrigerator to allow the suspended yeast to fall to the bottom

I plan on brewing friday afternoon so when i wake up friday take the starter yeast out allow to come to room temp. Before pitching the starter to my brew friday i will dump the liquid off the top of the yeast and pitch directly in the wort.

Being my first starter let me know if you have any suggestions, but i think its a pretty easy process but who knows any help would be useful

 

[rtt121]

Good work! That starter was made just fine.

Only problem I can see is you didnt post your recipe or how old the yeast was.

The recipe is needed because we need to know how many sugars you are planning on having this yeast consume.

The date of yeast mfg is crucial for finding out viability.

google mr. malty and you will get a link to pitching rate calculator... that will tell you how much starter you need.


Seems to me more often than not I am making at least a 2 liter starter.

Hope it goes well... if you do need a bigger starter just make another and pitch the old into the new.

 

[Gordzilla]

I used white labs california ale yeast best used before date of june 28, 2011
the DME i used was briess dried malt extract golden light no date on it

3.5cups of boiled water 1 cup cooled water after boil
so roughly 1 liter of wort is being made

 

[rtt121]

You still didnt give the recipe... I assume this is a 5 gallon batch?

You have 4.5 cups of starter which you made with 1/2 cup dme. 4.5 cups is 1,080 ml. 1/2 cup dme ime is about 50grams.

I always use the 1 to 10 ratio. In this case would work out to 100 grams or 1 cup of dme. That will give you about 1.040 which is said to be ideal SG of starter wort.

But lets say you do have wort that is 1.040. (Because this is assumed in Mr. Malty)

I plugged in 2/1 as the mfg date of your yeast which yields about 80 percent viability. I also plugged in 1.052 as that is a pretty good baseline number... not to many beers are less than that.

You can see you would need 2 liters of 1.040 wort for this beer.

In your situation I think you have wort closer to 1.020.

My guess would be you will be underpitching (unless of course you ARE brewing something closer to 1.040. When plugging in 1.040 for OG you get about 1 liter recommended starter size)

 

[Gordzilla]

when i put all my data into mr. malty i came up with a starter of 1.54liters/305 billion cells so yeah i will be underpitching a little but its better than just using the one vial that i was gonna originally pitch. I also have some yeast fuel that i will be adding to the wort so hopefully that helps them do some work. Yes this will be a 5gal batch with a OG of 1.090-1.1, its for a barleywine

 

[rtt121]

Whoooaaa. 1.090.

For all effective purposes you have a half liter starter (because you have half the sugars in your starter wort than you should have)

I personally would not fathom putting even a 1 liter starter into a wort of 1.090.

When I plug in your info, Mr. Malty says over SEVEN liters of starter. Are you sure you didnt have that slider to the left? If so it might say 1.54 liters with THREE yeast packs.
You will be WAYYY underpitching.

I agree that a small starter is better than no starter.. but in this case I believe you will end up with something that isnt very good.

Others can chime in here if you like..

 

[rtt121]

For the sake of the beer....

Dont pitch a 1 liter starter into your barleywine!

 

[Gordzilla]

haha your right it was way off to the left....can i boil up some more DME and make a larger starter? Or should i just get another vial of white labs and make a new larger starter

 

[rtt121]

You can certainly get enough yeast from 1 pack.. it jsut takes some more time and planning. If you are set on brewing Friday I would buy 2 more yeast and even then probably make a small starter and pitch both starters.

What I would do is let the 1 liter starter ferment (12-18 hours). I would then pitch that into a 2 liter starter for a total of 3 liters.. let that ferment. Then pitch that into a starter that will fill the remainder of starter you need. Ie you need 7.5 and you have 3 so make 4.5.

1 yeast will always work so long as you have the time and dme.

Pitching 1 yeast into a starter that is 7.5 liters isnt ideal either. Starters that big need to be stepped up like I described above. So unless you are willing to purchase more yeast. You are on the right track already.

 

[Gordzilla]

When i did my mr. malty calcs i uses the intermittent shaking option with the growth factor in the middle. Im not exactly sure how this program is works but the barleywine im making is from an extract kit and it only suggests using the 1vial of yeast so a starter with added nutrients seems like it would work decently but im gonna go get another vial and make a larger starter also

 

[rtt121]

The kit is wrong. They wouldnt sell many kits if they told you you have to buy 3-4 packs of yeast.

The directions on the yeast are insufficient if not wrong.

1 pack is hardly ever enough yeast (unless you are using dry yeast, but even then with a barleywine i would get two)

If you just want to make beer... follow the instuctions.

If you want to make good beer, pitch enough yeast, and control the fermentation temperature

 

[Gordzilla]

with my starter would it be advised to add another vial of white labs when i pitch the starter? I will be adding yeast nutrients also after i brew the wort. I could always wait until sunday to brew so i give my current starter enough time to get ready

 

[rtt121]

If you plan on stepping up the starter I would put it into the starter wort when you step it up next.

If you arent stepping up and are hoping that 2 viles and a 1 liter starter will do the trick (my indirect way of recommending you dont do this) I would put the new yeast into the starter you have going

 

[Gordzilla]

ive decided to go get some more yeast and make a larger starter, then combine the two starters i got going before pitching them into my wort later this week....will it make a difference if i go and get dry yeast packages since i already used white labs liquid yeast vial?

 

[rtt121]

you could combine different yeasts, it wont have a negative affect on your beer.

I have HEARD.. meaning not speaking from experience that one will probably be dominant and out compete the other.

If you are going to get dry yeast you dont really need a starter. I would think a small step up to the starter you have and 1 pack of dry yeast would be enough. But use mr malty. You know how much yeast you need.. 300 or so ml. How you get that much is up to you at this point.