Too little DME in starter

[charley]

Ok so here's my conundrum, take a read when you're free. I searched all the boards but can't find anybody who did what I did. I'd appreciate some input if you can. I THINK I'm ok, but I'm not sure...

Two days ago I mistakingly put 16 ounces of DME into 1600 ml of water, boiled, cooled, pitched two vials. Next day I was reading because I haven't seen any action so I was a little nervous. I read up on it and saw my ratio was off. Wasn't supposed to be 1:100, but rather 1:10. Sooooo....

I dumped the mixture into a big bowl, cleaned and sanitized the flask, added 1600 ml of water. When I hit boil I dumped the water out of the bowl and then poured the the yeast that had settled in the bowl into the new boil. Just for ****s I added a third vial to make sure at least some viable yeast made it in.

So basically my yeast stirred for 24 hours in almost no DME (16 grams) and mostly all water.

It's been 24 hours since I redid everything and haven't seen any activity.

Is my yeast ruined? Was there any harm in it stirring in water and a tiny bit of DME for 24 hours? I read a lot of repitching and repitching and repitching the same yeast so I think I basically repitched because I screwed up the the first time.

 

[flars]

No your yeast isn't ruined by being in a 1.004 wort. Not very much replication though with the small amount of food for the yeast. Give your starter more time to start. Sometimes it takes more than 24 hours. Quite often you will not see a krausen when using a stir plate. You will see the wort starting to become a light creamy color as the yeast replicates.

I am guessing your poured the yeast from the bowl into the boiled and cooled wort.

 

[oldstyle69]

you should be fine, as long as you didnt dump your yeast into boiling water. ... also was the bowl sanitized that you dumped in to?

and at first you say 16oz, then later say 16g. im guessing you didnt put 1lb of dme in and thats a type-o. if everything was cooled and you didnt dump into anything hot, your fine. give it some time.

ive had starters take 2.5 days to get goin. not often, but a few.

 

[DurtyChemist]

If you pitched a fresh vial of yeast as good measure, and didn't boil anything, I'd say you're fine and will start to see activity soon. Check gravity.

 

[charley]

I didn't boil the yeast. I decanted the first 1.004 wort out and put it back in to a new starter with the correct amount of dme. I boiled and cooled before I repitched. Still been 48 hours, no activity but it's on the stir plate and it has become a thick cloudy whirlpool in there. No krausen so that's what's had me worried. My first starter, hoping it's fine, I'm brewing a 1.104 imp stout this weekend and plan on using this yeast.

Last question, what's the speed I should use on my plate? I've had it between medium and high. Enough to keep a whirlpool going

 

[kh54s10]

You probably won't see activity like you would with a full beer. You might see a little layer of bubbles and if you look really close, tiny bubbles rising through the wort. But you probably won't have a krausen. Thick and cloudy sounds perfect. Somewhat clear wort until the yeast multiply, then cloudy. You don't need a great vortex going, just a decent dimple on the surface and a constant stirring.

 

[kh54s10]

BTW your first wort had way too MUCH DME and was not 1.004. It was 1.100. 1.6 liters needs 160 grams of DME which is 5.64 ounce not 16. If you used 16 grams in the second batch, decant like you did the first time and add that to a new starter with 160 GRAMS in 1.6 liters of water.

It is really easy. Take the water in liters and one decimal place then remove the decimal point and add a zero to get the grams. .5 liters = 50 grams, 75 liters = 75 grams, 1.0 liters = 100 grams, 1.3 liters = 130 grams. 1.75 liters = 175 grams etc.

 

[charley]

I misspoke, I meant grams. 😅

 

[charley]

Update... it went nuts when I pitched it. If you ever mess up the amount of DME, just calm down, salvage and start over. I pitched this into a 1.096 imp stout. Blew out my blow off tube vessel and pooped all over my chamber walls