simple starter gravity WAY off!!

[kjm13]

I just am in the process of making my second starter ever. Used the pitch rate calculator from Brewer's friend and instructions from Brew academy.com. 2L starter. Took 2L of water, brought to boil, added 228G of LME, boiled for 15 min. Was suppose to make a 1.040g starter, I'm at 1.055, which brewer's friend says is too high for a starter.

How did I end up SO off???
Should I boil some water (how much) cool and top off?
Brewing Sunday so planning on pitching whole thing and not decanting.
thanks!

 

[Gavin C]

Your off because you boiled off water

With starters just boil or 1 minute. That sanitizes the malt extract. DME is a lot easier to use BTW.

• Add x grams of DME to vessel.
  
• Add 10x volume of water to vessel ( a little less if using LME) for a gravity of ~1.037)
  
• Bring to a boil while stirring occasionally
  
• Boil 1 minute.
  
• Cool
  
• Pitch yeast when at room temperature.

The starter calculator does not account for boil off.

If it already made don't worry about it. Just learn from the very minor error and needless added time you went to. No worries.

Go ahead and use the starter as is. You will get less growth per gram of malt extract in your starter than you otherwise would have but it is not likely to be a major problem.

If he yeast is already pitched, you could add boiled and cooled water to it to bring you back to the desired volume. Personally I would not bother and never check the gravity of a starter.

More about a simple and quick way to make a starter in my sig below if your interested.

That's a big starter to pitch the whole thing IMO. I always decant but no right or wrong there. I would not want 2L of oxygenated beer added to my 5.5 gallon batches.

 

[kjm13]

Your off because you boiled off water

With starters just boil or 1 minute. That sanitizes the malt extract. DME is a lot easier to use BTW.

• Add x grams of DME to vessel.
  
• Add 10x volume of water to vessel ( a little less if using LME) for a gravity of ~1.037)
  
• Bring to a boil while stirring occasionally
  
• Boil 1 minute.
  
• Cool
  
• Pitch yeast when at room temperature.

The starter calculator does not account for boil off.

If it already made don't worry about it. Just learn from the very minor error and needless added time you went to. No worries.

Go ahead and use the starter as is. You will get less growth per gram of malt extract in your starter than you otherwise would have but it is not likely to be a major problem.

If he yeast is already pitched, you could add boiled and cooled water to it to bring you back to the desired volume. Personally I would not bother and never check the gravity of a starter.

More about a simple and quick way to make a starter in my sig below if your interested.

That's a big starter to pitch the whole thing IMO. I always decant but no right or wrong there. I would not want 2L of oxygenated beer added to my 5.5 gallon batches.

I did use DME... My bad on the lingo. It was "light" dry malt extract which is where I got the "L" OK - I'll remember that for next time. So are the instructions on the Homebrew academy website just plain wrong? That's where I read you need to boil for 15 min...

I would like to decant, but do you think I have time? Pitching right now, and brewing Sunday. Will I have time to hVae the yeast proliferate enough before I put it in the fridge so the yeast will settle enough to decant?
thanks!!

 

[Gavin C]

So are the instructions on the Homebrew academy website just plain wrong?

Yes. There is no justification for boiling for this arbitrary timeframe. The CDC advises that below a certain altitude boiling for 1 minute is adequate to kill 99.9+% of microbes in water. Even if your making a starter with water from your toilet bowl, this sanitizes the starter. That's the goal in addition to mixing the DME and water.

do you think I have time? Pitching right now, and brewing Sunday. Will I have time to hVae the yeast proliferate enough before I put it in the fridge so the yeast will settle enough to decant?
thanks!!

No. I don't believe that to be enough time based on my own experiences. Others may disagree.

Pitch the whole thing. Your're probably at about 1.75L anyway so no major drama.

 

[kh54s10]

You can also lower the gravity of your starter wort by just adding water!!! Boil and cool it to be on the safe side for sanitation.

I agree you will not be able to decant. If you are starting your starter now you will take it off a stirplate tomorrow at about this time, or just leave it fermenting. I find it takes a couple of days to cold crash for decanting. If you are not using a stirplate you will want to let it ferment until you pitch on Sunday

 

[gromitdj]

...Took 2L of water, brought to boil, added 228G of LME, boiled for 15 min. Was suppose to make a 1.040g starter, I'm at 1.055,

That will give you a gravity of about 1.042 (according to brewunited.com calculator) before any boiling. Which is a little high already. Use Gavin's directions above and add 200g of DME and enough water to get to 2000ml, then boil for 1 minute.

 

[kjm13]

Yes. There is no justification for boiling for this arbitrary timeframe. The CDC advises that below a certain altitude boiling for 1 minute is adequate to kill 99.9+% of microbes in water. Even if your making a starter with water from your toilet bowl, this sanitizes the starter. That's the goal in addition to mixing the DME and water.



No. I don't believe that to be enough time based on my own experiences. Others may disagree.

Pitch the whole thing. Your probably at about 1.75L anyway so no major drama.

It's got over 13oz of hops in it, so I'm hoping that will cover any flavors caused by pitching the whole starter...

I have one more packet of this Giga GY054 yeast. I was told they are really only good for a month (by my LHBS guy) and the manufacture date is 11/10/15. So I was going to make another starter sometime in the next few days (Which I will only boil for one minute) then should I decant and save the slurry, or do a few step up's first? I know sometimes this stuff can be hard to come by, and I want to get the most bang for my buck here.
thanks!

 

[Gavin C]

It's got over 13oz of hops in it, so I'm hoping that will cover any flavors caused by pitching the whole starter...

I have one more packet of this Giga GY054 yeast. I was told they are really only good for a month (by my LHBS guy) and the manufacture date is 11/10/15. So I was going to make another starter sometime in the next few days (Which I will only boil for one minute) then should I decant and save the slurry, or do a few step up's first? I know sometimes this stuff can be hard to come by, and I want to get the most bang for my buck here.
thanks!

No your LHBS guy is spinning you BS. There is a slow drop off in viability over time but you just factor that in when making your starter, based on the date of manufacture. How much of a drop off depends on whomever's data you use and trust.

All starters require some info to calculate size, if a planned pitch rate is to be targeted.

• Date of yeast manufacture (viability of yeast, % of starting 100Billion)
• Size of batch
• OG of wort
• Type of brew (ale, lager, hybrid)
• Are you using stir plate or not
• Gravity of starter (shoot for 1.037 to 1.040 for maximal growth/g of DME)

Your yeast is fresh, use it when you need to. Making a starter now and saving the slurry will just give you a new population of yeast that will slowly lose viability over time likely needing a mother starter later on. Work smart not hard.

I've had yeast harvested months earlier in the fridge that was used to ferment wort to beer. Many do the same. Yeast is resilient stuff, particularly if refrigerated and kept under starter beer.

 

[RM-MN]

The manufacturer claims that each packet contains about 200 billion yeast cells and thus needs no starter. Just open it up and dump. Further, even liquid yeast is more hardy than many of the calculators claim if you keep it refrigerated. Take a look at this research. http://www.woodlandbrew.com/2012/12/refrigeration-effects-on-yeast-viability.html

 

[kjm13]

No your LHBS guy is spinning you BS. There is a slow drop off in viability over time but you just factor that in when making your starter, based on the date of manufacture. How much of a drop off depends on whomever's data you use and trust.



All starters require some info to calculate size, if a planned pitch rate is to be targeted.

• Date of yeast manufacture (viability of yeast, % of starting 100Billion)
  
• Size of batch
  
• OG of wort
  
• Type of brew (ale, lager, hybrid)
  
• Are you using stir plate or not
  
• Gravity of starter (shoot for 1.037 to 1.040 for maximal growth/g of DME)
  

So, this is all the same info I plug into the calculator too on Brewers friend yeast pitching tool:

Manufacture Date: 11/10/15 >200 billion cells (Giga yeast comes in a "double pitch package"

Batch size: 5g

OG: 1.069

Brew type: Ale

Stir plate: No (but I don't sleep a lot so it gets swirled quite a lot)


Yeast is resilient stuff, particularly if refrigerated and kept under starter beer.

Sorry, this sentence confused me a it. So should I make a starter with the yeast I plan to use in 4 to 6 weeks, and just not decant it and leave the entire starter in the fridge? Or just leave the yeast in the package, and make the starter 5 or 6 days before I brew?
Thanks! Appreciate all the feedback!

 

[Gavin C]

Sorry, this sentence confused me a it. So should I make a starter with the yeast I plan to use in 4 to 6 weeks, and just not decant it and leave the entire starter in the fridge? Or just leave the yeast in the package, and make the starter 5 or 6 days before I brew?
Thanks! Appreciate all the feedback!

Sorry for any confusion.

No.

Don't make a starter till you need it.
Don't make one weeks in advance.
Keep it in the package in the fridge.

 

[kjm13]

Sorry for any confusion.

No.

Don't make a starter till you need it.
Don't make one weeks in advance.
Keep it in the package in the fridge.

Thanks Gavin - Appreciate it!

 

[kjm13]

I'm concerned about this starter I made Friday night... there is no Krausen, (there was, but it looked like the head on a beer, not what is usually in my carboy with fermentation) and it smells a bit like cider. gonna pitch in about 2 hrs. Should I not use it and just use the 2billion packet I have?
thanks!!

 

[jekeane]

I'm concerned about this starter I made Friday night... there is no Krausen, (there was, but it looked like the head on a beer, not what is usually in my carboy with fermentation) and it smells a bit like cider. gonna pitch in about 2 hrs. Should I not use it and just use the 2billion packet I have?
thanks!!

If it was on a stir plate you more often then not will not have much more that a ring of bubbles for krausen.

 

[kjm13]

If it was on a stir plate you more often then not will not have much more that a ring of bubbles for krausen.

No stir plate, but it got swirled a lot in the first 24h. I was home the whole time, so prob at least once every 2h. How about the cidery smell?
thanks,

 

[jekeane]

No stir plate, but it got swirled a lot in the first 24h. I was home the whole time, so prob at least once every 2h. How about the cidery smell?
thanks,

Green or bruised apple scent is possibly just acetylahyde from warmer then normal temps which can happen when making a starter.

 

[kjm13]

I pitched the whole starter... Thanks for the feedback!

 

[Clearwall]

Even if your making a starter with water from your toilet bowl, this sanitizes the starter.

Hmmm...this sounds like a challenge...