Suggestions for making a starter

[jcheavener]

I have searched many threads and read many books about starters but have been reluctant to try do to lack of material and time. Any suggestions on what the best method to go about this would be?

 

[Blender]

I not sure I'm following you. You really only need a 1.5 - 2 litre bottle, some DME and possibly yeast nutrient. You are really just making a small batch of beer and trying to double your yeast cell count.

 

[Dark_Ale]

What are you making?
What yeast are you using.
Whats your OG gonna be?

 

[brewgrl]

If you're making a standard brew (ie not high alcohol, <1.06)...

Add 1 cup DME (and 1/2 tsp of yeast nutrient, if you have it) to 1 liter of water and boil for 10 minutes. Transfer to a sanitized 2L or greater flask, bottle, or container, let cool to ~80F and pitch yeast (for pitching into 1L you should have the equivalent of a wyeast propagator pack in yeast...if not, see below). Cover top with aluminum foil immediately after transfer to keep out the nasties--do not use your airlock! If you are VERY paranoid about nasties you can also stuff the neck with cotton wool and then foil (like in vitamin bottles) but aluminum foil should be fine.

There seems to be a lot of argument about whether or not to airlock the starter--the point of a starter is to get your yeast to reproduce like crazy to increase your pitching rate. Yeast reproduce much better in the presence of oxygen (this is why we aerate the wort) so the starter should not be airlocked. This is also why it is important to use a container much larger than the volume of your starter...more oxygen!

Place covered starter in a warm spot (~80F) and grow for 24 hours, swirling as often as possible to resuspend the yeast (or use a stir plate). When you're a few hours away from pitching, don't swirl and let the yeast settle. That way you can pour off the presumably nasty tasting oxidized wort and pitch only the bottom 1/3 or so of your starter.

IF you're starting with a freezer stock or fewer cells than a propagator pack....
you need to do a serial starter. Using the above procedure, do a 10 mL starter overnight and then pitch this entire culture into your 1L the following day. If you pitch a small number of yeast into a large starter, they will not be as healthy and you will be more likely to get contamination since the yeast will not be able to multiply as fast and outcompete the nasties that survived sanitation.

IF you're brewing a high OG brew....
You'll need a 2L starter since more alcohol means more stress for the yeast! Start with the 1L for ~24 hours, let it settle a bit, decant, and then pitch into 2L. Also consider repitching yeast when you rack to the secondary.

hope that helps!
Cheers.

 

[eriktlupus]

i make starters when doing an AG session by adding an xtra gallon of water at the end of my brews sparge and boiling it in an xtra pot from my extract days. cool it down when it hits a good hot break and bottle it in 12 or 22 oz bottles, store them in the fridge until needed then decant into your starter flask and pitch my yeast tube.

 

[Rick500]

I followed White Labs' directions and used an airlock (just now), and ended up having a drop or two of vodka from the airlock sucked into the starter. I guess it cooled down a few degrees from the time I sealed it.

I'm assuming that with a 32 oz starter volume, those few drops of alcohol won't hinder the yeast too much?

At this point, should I remove the airlock and use foil instead?

The beer I'll be brewing in a couple days will be about 1064 OG, if it makes any difference.


[Edit: The yeast seem to be happily going about their business now, so no worries I guess.]