Made my first yeast starter, not entirely sure what I'm doing!

[SurlyBrew]

I made my first yeast starter for a Surly Furious extract kit. The yeast is Wyeast 1335 British Ale 2. The OG for the kit is 1.064, so it suggested making a starter. I followed Palmer's recipe of 2 cups water to 1/2 cup DME. Made the wort, aerated it, pitched yeast and I have been shaking it for the last hour. Its starting to take of so that's a good sign. I don't have a flask, the only thing I had was an empty gallon jug, and no stir plate as well... Followed the recipe exactly, sanitized, and I am brewing in two days. So I'm giving it 48 hours. Not sure what kind of yeast count I will get/going for. Not sure if I need to add more wort to it, and or when. So basically continue to shake it as much as possible until I pitch it on Saturday? Is 48 hours long enough? Any words of advice? All is appreciated, thanks!

 

[b-boy]

48 hours should be enough time. I usually do mine on the Thursday before I brew. I started with a flask, but now I use a gallon jug too. It lets me make a bigger starter when needed. A starter will make a big difference in your final product.

just keep shaking it.

 

[House12]

I made my first yeast starter for a Surly Furious extract kit. The yeast is Wyeast 1335 British Ale 2. The OG for the kit is 1.064, so it suggested making a starter. I followed Palmer's recipe of 2 cups water to 1/2 cup DME. Made the wort, aerated it, pitched yeast and I have been shaking it for the last hour. Its starting to take of so that's a good sign. I don't have a flask, the only thing I had was an empty gallon jug, and no stir plate as well... Followed the recipe exactly, sanitized, and I am brewing in two days. So I'm giving it 48 hours. Not sure what kind of yeast count I will get/going for. Not sure if I need to add more wort to it, and or when. So basically continue to shake it as much as possible until I pitch it on Saturday? Is 48 hours long enough? Any words of advice? All is appreciated, thanks!

The thing to keep in mind with starters is that you are trying to grow yeast, not make beer. Yeast growth is a product of the initial lag phase. Meaning, growth should be done in the first 24 hours.

The only thing to keep in mind for future starters is that the amount of starter wort you use directly impacts yeast growth. For a beer of 1.064 OG, you'd want a bit over 200 Billion yeast cells. Your Wyeast pack has about half that. That is why a starter is recommended. The problem is, a starter with 1/2 cup of DME is not going to grow the yeast very much. In order to get ~200 billion cells, you would have wanted to make a starter that is about 2 Liters. However, the more you shake that starter wort up, the greater your yeast growth would be.

In my opinion, you should just be happy that you bothered to make a starter in the first place. An unfortunate % of homebrewers do not do so. In the future, use something like Mr. Malty's yeast calculator to help calculate how much starter wort should be in your jug, and just use the 10/1 rule (1g of Dry Malt Extract for every 10 miliLiters of Water...100 grams DME for every Liter).

Now just focus on strict fermentation control in your first 3 days of fermentation, and you'll be making considerably better beer.

 

[House12]

For future reference...

Use this to calculate how big your starter should be:
http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html

And use the ratio of 1 gram of DME for every 10 mL of water (100 grams per liter)

(And keep in mind... the more you shake/aerate that starter, the more yeast growth you will get)

 

[SurlyBrew]

The thing to keep in mind with starters is that you are trying to grow yeast, not make beer. Yeast growth is a product of the initial lag phase. Meaning, growth should be done in the first 24 hours.

The only thing to keep in mind for future starters is that the amount of starter wort you use directly impacts yeast growth. For a beer of 1.064 OG, you'd want a bit over 200 Billion yeast cells. Your Wyeast pack has about half that. That is why a starter is recommended. The problem is, a starter with 1/2 cup of DME is not going to grow the yeast very much. In order to get ~200 billion cells, you would have wanted to make a starter that is about 2 Liters. However, the more you shake that starter wort up, the greater your yeast growth would be.

In my opinion, you should just be happy that you bothered to make a starter in the first place. An unfortunate % of homebrewers do not do so. In the future, use something like Mr. Malty's yeast calculator to help calculate how much starter wort should be in your jug, and just use the 10/1 rule (1g of Dry Malt Extract for every 10 miliLiters of Water...100 grams DME for every Liter).

Now just focus on strict fermentation control in your first 3 days of fermentation, and you'll be making considerably better beer.

How much should I add to it then? I can always add more wort to it tonight and grow some more yeast for tomorrow. Also, I woke up this morning, didn't see any krausen, but there was some chunky stuff floating around/on the bottom. Good sign?

 

[SurlyBrew]

Mr. Malty said a starter of 1.8 L. So is the 1.8L measured before or after boiling the wort? Since 1.8L is 7.6 cups, and I started with 2. Can I just add another 5.6 cups up wort with the same ratio? Also, can I pour all 1.8 L into the wort without decanting? Seems like a bit much to add... Not sure if I have enough timeto cold crash.

 

[House12]

Mr. Malty said a starter of 1.8 L. So is the 1.8L measured before or after boiling the wort? Since 1.8L is 7.6 cups, and I started with 2. Can I just add another 5.6 cups up wort with the same ratio? Also, can I pour all 1.8 L into the wort without decanting? Seems like a bit much to add... Not sure if I have enough timeto cold crash.

You can just add in more wort, but just make sure it is all cooled down before you pour it into your jug, and make sure it's sanitary.

And whether you pitch the entire starter into your beer or not is entirely up to you. If you're brewing something delicate, it's definitely better to cool and then decant. However, when you pitch the entire volume, you are able to pitch a more healthy yeast, since you are getting those actively working yeasts that are still in solution that get tossed out when you decant. A starter made the day before will still work. Hopefully, you will be able to pitch the contents right after growth and during active fermentation.

 

[SurlyBrew]

I ended up pitching the whole thing due to lack of time to cold crash. By far the strongest fermentation I have seen. I will definitely do it again and reccomend all do a starter from now on.

Picture to prove it:

 

[MedicMike]

I made my first yeast starter a few weeks ago when I brewed the Northern Brewer Black IPA kit. The OG was 1.075. I made the starter to their instructions (1/2 cup of DME in 650ml of H2O), on Friday with brewday planned for Sunday. I swirled the flask everytime I walked by it. Sunday morning, it was settled enough to decant the leftover wort. I made up another batch of wort, cooled in and put into the flask. Swirled up the yeast cake and got it going again. This was the most active batch I've brewed so far. Because I use sanitized water in my airlock, I had a steady column of foam climbing up and out of my airlock for at least 4 days. It finally slowed down on Thursday. I am definitely a believer of the yeast starter.