Made my first yeast starter, does this look alright?

[triptens]

I boiled 2 quarts of water and 1 cup dme then chilled and added a safale s-04 dry yeast packet. It's been three days and this is what it looks like now. Do I pitch the whole growler or just drain the liquid off and use the yeast?

 

[ryandlf]

It looks right, and yes you can go ahead and pitch it, but in the future don't start the starter so many days in advance. You want to pitch the yeast into the DME te morning of or at most the night before brew day. You want to pitch the starter when it is just getting the party started with the whole fermentation thing, not after its already completed.

 

[SoxFan44]

You'll probably get a lot of debate as to whether or not you should even create a starter for dried yeast. But as for your question, I believe the best thing to do is to cold crash it to get the yeast out of suspension then decant the used wort off the top. I just dump the entire thing in myself.

 

[smizak]

Really shouldn't make a yeast starter with dry yeast unless you're pitching one packet for 10 gallons or something. There are plenty of yeast cells for a typical 5 gallon batch in a S-04 packet. The yeast are also dried at a high level of health, full glycogen reserves, ready to get to work on your wort. Your kinda wasting that when you make a starter.

 

[triptens]

I guess that's what you get from taking advice from your local homebrew shop employee. I have an extra packet, should I just pitch that?

 

[jtakacs]

no... your starter is fine, but slurries with the dried yeasts work great. i'd just chill it, decant it and pitch the slurry into your beer and save the other packet.

 

[stephm]

I had to be forced into starting a dry yeast packed. It was about an hour before we were going to start brewing and I had a new stir plate.

One of the guys in the club always starts his dry yeast and so talked me into it. (I think he really wanted to see the stir plate in action) LOL

I LOVED seeing the krausen/foam at the top of the starter. It made me feel uber confident about the viability of the beer to come.

Just my $0.02

 

[erikpete18]

I always figured it was cheaper to just buy a second packet of yeast than to spend the money on the DME for the starter. Not sure if that's actually the case, but with the time I save not making the starter I figure I'd at least break even .