Starter woes

[trireme32]

When I was brewing my first batch (bottled last night - yay!), I had tried making a starter. It never took off after 2 days of waiting - my local home brew shop said it was probably a dead vial, so I bought another vial and just pitched it (I have a strange work schedule so my windows for brewing are small).

For my second batch I really wanted to get a starter going. It's going to be a milk stout, and I'm using a Wyeast smack pack, so a starter probably isn't necessary, but I really wanted to experience what a good starter looks like. I even bought a Pyrex vial so I could do it properly - last time I boiled the malt and water in a pot and then cooled and transferred to a jar.

I'm using LME this time, and searching around I found that I should use 1/2 cup LME for a 1 ltr starter. I boiled the extract and water for about 15 minutes, cooled it to 72F, gave it a good shake, pitched the yeast (the smack pack had swollen already), put the foam stopper in, and shook again. I shook it every hour or so until I went to bed (so that was twice). About 10 hours later I woke up and checked on it - absolutely no evidence of any activity, and it looks like the yeast has already settled out. I gave it another shake. I noticed that the foam stopper was getting wet when I shook the vial, so I thought maybe it was preventing oxygen from getting in, so I sanitized some foil and put that over the top instead.

Should I be worried that the yeast had already dropped out? Is the starter most likely dead? I watched it for a bit this morning and couldn't see any bubbles at all...

 

[Kaz]

Starter is not dead, even with a stir plate,I often see no signs of activity. It can ferment out overnite, i'm sure its fine.

 

[Pie_Man]

I never have any activity in my starters. I use a flask with tin foil over the top. I can tell there's yeast growth by the amount of yeast that will settle to the bottom; it's much more than what came in the vial.

 

[NordeastBrewer77]

Sounds like you made a starter. They don't get active like a beer will, if you have yeast settling on the bottom, it's woking as normal.

 

[user 103238]

You won't get sustained fermentation like you would with a 5-gallon batch, but rather intermittent bursts like you experienced with the occasional agitation. Sounds like it's doing what a starter should be doing. Make sure you are preparing a blowoff hose for the upcoming fermentation!

 

[homebrewdad]

Yep, sounds like you made a starter. Do note that smack pack or vial makes no difference - you should pretty much always make a starter with liquid yeast.

The smaxk pack gives you a quick eyeball proof to see if the yeast is viable, but the number of cells in a smack pack are comperable to what you get in a vial. You still need a starter.

 

[Keithww]

My first brew in 15 years goes to the bottles this week, when I first tried a starter it just didn't look right. Looked like water with yeast mixed in like you would use for making bread. I trashed that batch and hurried up and made a second batch and started it about 20 hours before my brew time. Second starter looked like beer, clear yellow liquid, with a health yeast cake on the bottom. Not sure if the first was ok or not, but the second one looked great, and had the air trap bubbling with in 4 hours. Does it look like beer, or dirty water?