Making first Yeast starter... Help please!

[SteelCityBrewery]

I am attempting my first mini mash brew. As a hop head I chose to try a Pliny the Elder clone. I'm making a ten gallon batch. The guys at my local hb shop said that I needed two vials of WPL001 and I needed to make a half gallon starter. I have a 2L erlenmyer flask but no stopper/airlock.

Questions:

1.) Best method to clean/sanitize? just throw some water and starsan in and rinse?

2.) Once sanitized, add 1.75 L water, add 1lb of DME, boil an hour, cool to 68F, then pitch two vials of yeast. Sound right?

3.) How do I avoid mass boil over?

4.) With no airlock or stopper, how do I close up flask?

Thanks again for the help guys! Greatly appreciated!

 

[kyleslattery]

I am attempting my first mini mash brew. As a hop head I chose to try a Pliny the Elder clone. I'm making a ten gallon batch. The guys at my local hb shop said that I needed two vials of WPL001 and I needed to make a half gallon starter. I have a 2L erlenmyer flask but no stopper/airlock.

Questions:

1.) Best method to clean/sanitize? just throw some water and starsan in and rinse?

No need to rinse with StarSan. Also, if you're boiling the DME directly in the flask, that will sanitize it just fine, without needing to sanitize ahead of time.

2.) Once sanitized, add 1.75 L water, add 1lb of DME, boil an hour, cool to 68F, then pitch two vials of yeast. Sound right?

That's way too much DME. You want roughly 1 g of DME for every 10 ml of water, so for 1.75, you'll want 175g.

3.) How do I avoid mass boil over?

Keep a close eye on it, and if it starts foaming, turn down the heat or remove it until the foam dies back down

4.) With no airlock or stopper, how do I close up flask?

Just use a sanitized piece of aluminum foil.

Here's a great tutorial on making a starter, highly recommended: http://billybrew.com/how-to-make-a-yeast-starter

 

[kyleslattery]

Oh, and also—no need to boil for an entire hour. I'd say 10-15 minutes should be fine.

 

[mopillar]

This helped me as I have just did my first starter as well.

http://yeastcalc.com/

 

[SteelCityBrewery]

Wow! Thank you guys for the advice! One last question, would you pitch two vials of WPL001 in this starter? Thanks again

 

[kyleslattery]

What's the OG and batch size of the recipe? You can plug those into Mr Malty to see what you need:

http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html

 

[NordeastBrewer77]

Wow! Thank you guys for the advice! One last question, would you pitch two vials of WPL001 in this starter? Thanks again

You don't 'need' two packs for that starter, but it sure won't hurt anything.

 

[SteelCityBrewery]

I plugged it into mr malty and it said that I would need 2.78 Liters of starter for two vials. But I only have a 2L flask. What should I do?

 

[NordeastBrewer77]

I plugged it into mr malty and it said that I would need 2.78 Liters of starter for two vials. But I only have a 2L flask. What should I do?

Use a 1 gal jug for the starter. Milk carton, wine jug, etc. Any container you can sanitize and cover with foil will work for a starter. Or make a 1.5 L starter, ferment completely, cold crash and decant. Add another 1.5 L of fresh wort, repeat and pitch the slurry. It's not exact, but the two steps will get you close to your pitch rate.

 

[kyleslattery]

I plugged it into mr malty and it said that I would need 2.78 Liters of starter for two vials. But I only have a 2L flask. What should I do?

What did you choose in the "Simple Starter" dropdown? If you left it at "Simple Starter", that assumes that you aren't adding any oxygen at all—if you change it to "Intermittant shaking" (which basically means you're shaking it around and introducing more oxygen every so often), the amount needed will go down by quite a bit.

 

[SteelCityBrewery]

I chose intermittent shaking. I guess I could just go get a one gallon jug and do it that way. How often should I intermittently shake it?

 

[neko]

How often should I intermittently shake it?

As much as you can without going crazy. You can't shake it too often since a continuous stir bar is the best option (but not available here).

 

[kyleslattery]

I chose intermittent shaking. I guess I could just go get a one gallon jug and do it that way. How often should I intermittently shake it?

I pretty much just swirl it around to get the yeast back into suspension whenever I think about it—probably ends up being every few hours or so.

 

[SteelCityBrewery]

So just for clarification, should I cold crash or leave sit in a cool area? And I decant the slurry out and just pitch yeast cake and minimal slurry?

 

[kyleslattery]

So just for clarification, should I cold crash or leave sit in a cool area? And I decant the slurry out and just pitch yeast cake and minimal slurry?

Yeah, I will generally let it do its thing at room temperature for about 24 hours, then toss it in the fridge for another 24, and then take it out a few hours before pitching. Once I'm ready to pitch, I pour out most of the clear wort at the top, leaving some to swirl the yeast in and pitch.

 

[robbywil]

For what it's worth, my process:
1-mr malty to determine starter size. I never exceed two liters as I want to use my flask and stir plate. Take yeast out of fridge at start of process to warm to pitching temp.
2-Sanitize. Place a bit of water, I do half liter, in your flask and place on stove, bring to boil to sanitize. Steam and eat will do the trick.
3-Starter. In a standard stock pot,ideally 2x size your starter, begin heating a little more than your expected starter volume(you'll have boil off). Well before boil add your dry malt extract and stir in. I use one half cup per liter of water and a whisk as it breaks up the malt quickly.
4-Boil. Personally I do the whole boil in my stock pot and then transfer to my flask. Especially at 2 L boil over in a flask will be a batch. I haven't used Antifoam so can't speak to that. Boil for 15 minutes.
5-Transfer and cool. Put your oven mitts on and empty your flask of boiling water. In a sink, carefully pour your boiled starter into your flask. Cover with foil or wax paper and wrap a rubber band around if necessary. Note that using a stopper is not recommended. Some flow of fresh air/oxygen is the point here in getting the yeast healthy. Fill your sink with cold water, if you have ice toss it in to speed things up. Speed things up more by swirling your starter to keep the heat transferring out.
6-Pitch yeast. Once room temp to the touch, take out of sink and pitch all yeast. I will typically add yeast nutrient 1tsp at this stage as well. Cover the flask and swirl vigorously for 15 seconds without splashing out or against the top.
7-if you don't have a stir plate just swirl as available. Once every couple hours if you're around. Get some sleep . Give it 36 to 48 hours ideally.

Other notes. If you have stir plate (cheap on eBay) don't forget to sanitize the stir stick with your flask. Just add to the water boil.

Painful lessons learned: whatever you do, if you are boiling in your flask, DO NOT ADD THE STIR STICK TO THE BOIL AFTER THE BOIL STARTED. BAD THINGS HAPPEN IN THE FORM OF A BOILING WORT CANNON. Not a problem once the boil has stopped.

Hope this helps. Cheers.

 

[SteelCityBrewery]

Hey guys, made my starter. It turned out great! I went ahead and used the DME amounts that Mr. Malty said to use and it worked to perfection. I boiled this in a big pan then transferred it to my flask. Put the tin foil on and cooled it down to 68 and pitched my yeast. I put it in a pot (for blowover) and shook it every 2-3 hours. I let it sit in in a cool dark area overnight and pitched the whole thing in my beer yesterday. My airlock is going crazy 12 hours after we got done! Just wanted to say thank you for the advice!