starter using starters

[dwigbrew]

What's the purpose of a starter? Up until now I only used wyeast. I'm wanting to try a stater after this next batch. But before I wanna understand as much as I can about it. I asume u are creating more yeast to eat sugars in your wort.. Correct? If so can someone explain a little about how they create your starter?

 

[Pappers_]

One of the keys to better beer is fermenting with a sufficient amount of healthy yeast. Yeast starters potentially help brewers create more and healthier yeast.

Lots of info in this subforum on making starters. Also, check out www.mrmalty.com

 

[mrduna01]

A starter is a way to not only make sure your yeast are healthy and can multiply but also to jump start there reproduction so that when pitched to the wort, there is a higher cell count which allows a healthier faster fermentation. To make a starter you would add sugar to the yeast in a jar and give then time to multiply before adding to the fresh wort. When using wyeast smack packs this is essentially what your doing. Your adding nutrients to the yeast and giving then time to grow. If the pack doesnt swell at all the yeast are not healthy.

 

[Pappers_]

A starter is a way to not only make sure your yeast are healthy and can multiply but also to jump start there reproduction so that when pitched to the wort, there is a higher cell count which allows a healthier faster fermentation. To make a starter you would add sugar to the yeast in a jar and give then time to multiply before adding to the fresh wort. When using wyeast smack packs this is essentially what your doing. Your adding nutrients to the yeast and giving then time to grWow. If the pack doesnt swell at all the yeast are not healthy.

Hi, a couple thoughts. First, using cane or corn sugar is not recommended for a starter. These are simple sugars and you want the yeast to grow in wort, which includes more complex sugars -most brewers use dry malt extract to make starters.

A second comment - the wyeast activator pack proofs the yeast (makes sure its viable) but it is not a starter.

 

[dwigbrew]

I'm only at the end of week one in my secondary and bubbles in the airlock is pretty spread out time wise. This is my first batch is this normal?

 

[Revvy]

It's really a good idea to make starters when using ANY liguid yeast for all beers above 1.020 OG...

The biggest reason I suggest folks make a starter is if you make one you'll have peace of mind. It's especially important if you have questionable situation happenning with your yeast, like not being sure the yeast arrived healthy.

And you won't be starting an "is my yeast dead" thread in a couple of days.

Making a starter first insures that your yeast is still alive and viable before you dump it in your beer. You will be less likely to start one of those "is my yeast dead?" threads that are on here every day.

You will also ensure that you have enough yeast usually the tubes and smack packs are a lot less yeast that you really should use for healthy fermentation.

Making a starter also usually means your beer will take off sooner, because the first thing that the little buggers do in the presence of wort (whether in a flask or in a fermenter) is have an orgy to reproduce enough cells to do the job...So it won't take such a long time in the fermenter since they started doing it in the flask.

Additionally it is better for the yeast to consume and reproduce incrementally rather than just dumping them into the fermenter...The yeast will be less stressed out than if you just dump them in.

Stressed out yeast can lead to a lot of off flavors...maybe even (though rare) the dreaded autolysis....Or the curse of 1.030....getting a stuck fermentation because the yeast have bit the dust.

So making a starter proves your yeast is still healthy, allows you to grow enough yeast to do the job, cuts down on lag time, and ensures that you will not get off flavors or stuck ferementations from stressed out yeast.

Also has to do with the actual pitch rates of the smack packs and tubes, and has to do with the data that Jamil Z has on his mr malty website.

I'll quote some of it, but really you should look at the stuff there;

http://www.mrmalty.com/pitching.php

Ales & Lagers

The general consensus on pitching rates is that you want to pitch around 1 million cells of viable yeast, for every milliliter of wort, for every degree plato. A little less for an ale, a little more for a lager. George Fix states about 1.5 million for a lager and 0.75 million for an ale in his book, An Analysis of Brewing Techniques. Other literature cites a slightly higher amount. I'm going with Fix's numbers and that is what the pitching calculator uses.
The Math

If you're curious, here is the simple math to calculate the number of cells needed. For an ale, you want to pitch around 0.75 million cells of viable yeast (0.75 million for an ale, 1.5 million for a lager), for every milliliter of wort, for every degree plato.

(0.75 million) X (milliliters of wort) X (degrees Plato of the wort)

* There is about 3785 milliliters in a gallon. There are about 20,000 milliliters in 5.25 gallons.

* A degree Plato is about 1.004 of original gravity. Just divide the OG by 4 to get Plato (e.g., 1.048 is 12 degrees Plato).

So, for a 1.048 wort pitching into 5.25 gallons you need about 180 billion cells.

(750,000) X (20,000) X (12) = 180,000,000,000

As an easy to remember rough estimate, you need about 15 billion cells for each degree Plato or about 4 billion cells for each point of OG when pitching into a little over 5 gallons of wort. If you want a quick way of doing a back of the envelope estimate, that is really close to 0.75 billion cells for each point of gravity per gallon of wort. Double that to 1.5 billion for a lager.
Pitching From Tubes, Packs, or Dry Yeast

Both White Labs and Wyeast make fantastic products and you can't go wrong with either one. There are differences between their strains and each brand has pluses and minuses yet neither is better than the other across the board. Use the brand your local homebrew shop carries, if you need a way to decide.

A White Labs tube has between 70 and 120 billion cells of 100% viable yeast, depending on the yeast strain. Some cells are much larger than others and there are more or less per ml based on size. (The information on the White Labs web site stating 30 to 50 billion cells is out of date.) We can just assume there are around 100 billion very healthy yeast. You would need 2 tubes if you were pitching directly into 5.5 gallons of 1.048 wort to get the proper cell counts.

A Wyeast Activator pack (the really big ones) and the pitchable tubes have an average of 100 billion cells of 100% viable yeast. The smaller packs are around 15-18 billion cells. You would need 2 of the large packs if you were pitching directly into 5.5 gallons of 1.048 wort to get the proper cell counts. For the small packs, you'd need eleven of them!

But to make it easier he has a great pitch rate calculator http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html

And according to his numbers on his calculator, really any beer above 1.020, you should be making a starter for.

Me personally when I use liquid yeast I just make a starter. I may not be as anal as some brewers and makes sure that I have the exact cellcount for whatever gravity beer I am making, but I do make one for the above reasons I mentioned, namely peace of mid, and a reduction in lag time.

Seriously, that's one way to insure you have clean tasting beer, not to stress out or underpitch your yeast. You may find the "bothering" to make a starter will make even the less than best kit beer come out tasting great.

 

[LarMoeCur]

Yeast starter was the second best thing that made a huge impact on my beer. First was a fermentation chiller to control frementation temps. Second was when I started using a start. Both made my beer taste more refind/clean.

 

[dwigbrew]

Do I need to put my starter in a dark place?

 

[Revvy]

No- the damage to beer from light is cause by hops in beer reacting. Since there's no hops in the starter that's not an issue. Besides we're not drinking the starter are we? It really doesn't matter what it tastes like, especially if you decant your beer. In fact if you are building up a starter over the course of a few days in the summer, your starter "beer" may taste or smell sour- some people do add a hop pellet or two as a preservative then.