What Should My Starter Be Doing?

[Kayos]

I made a yeast starter of WL 300 3 days ago. It has just sedimented on the bottom. I have swirled it a couple of times each day and it is not doing anything. What am I looking for? Just the same action as wort? Krausen? Bubbling?.....I used exactly what the Wiki said to do.

 

[EdWort]

How big was your starter? It sounds like it is finished. Perhaps it's time to step it up or use it.

 

[Kayos]

1 pt water, 1/2 cup DME. Boiled 10 minutes, cooled, dumped yeast. Never did a thing (unless it was overnight). O...btw...how do you all get all the yeast from the bottom into the fermenter? Swirl before or use a spoon and scrape.

And what do you mean by "step it up"? Put more DME in?

 

[Proofman]

You probably missed it. Look at the sediment in the starter jug. What does the surface look like? Here is what my first starter looked like:

If you really think it didn't start, put in the fridge for a while to make sure the yeast have flocculated, decant the liquid, do it again.

Not all starters are the gushers like you see some fo the experienced homebrewers here have. My first two liked like the pics above. Hardly any observable activity, but they took off when pitched.

 

[FlyingHorse]

1 pt water, 1/2 cup DME.

FWIW, that's a pretty high-grav starter (around 1.075, if my calcs are right). You only need it to be 1.040 or so.

 

[EdWort]

FWIW, that's a pretty high-grav starter (around 1.075, if my calcs are right). You only need it to be 1.040 or so.

1/2 a quart of water with 1/2 cup of DME is right out of Palmer's How to Brew book.

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Boil a pint (1/2 quart) of water and stir in 1/2 cup of DME. This will produce a starter of about 1.040 OG. Boil this for 10 minutes, adding a little bit of hops if you want to. Put the lid on the pan for the last couple minutes, turn off the stove and let it sit while you prepare for the next step. Adding a quarter teaspoon of yeast nutrient (vitamins, biotin, and dead yeast cells) to the starter wort is always advisable to ensure good growth. It is available from your brewshop.[/FONT]

It do mine this way all the time. Since it is a relativlty small starter compared to the amount of yeast in a WL tube, it was done over night. I do WL starters at 1 quart to 1 cup of DME, and Wyeast at half that.

 

[FlyingHorse]

FWIW, that's a pretty high-grav starter (around 1.075, if my calcs are right). You only need it to be 1.040 or so.

1/2 a quart of water with 1/2 cup of DME is right out of Palmer's How to Brew book.

I guess the key part of my post was "if my calcs are right". They weren't

Turns out a half-cup DME weighs a hair over 2 oz...or just what you need to make a pint starter at ~1.040.

Guess I don't need my scale when I make starters any more

 

[Evan!]

I've found that starter ferments are very easy to miss.

What I suggest is to smell it. If you get some alcohol burn in your nose, then it's done its business. There's a very different smell that comes from fermented starter versus wort.

 

[Kayos]

Alright, thanks, guys. BTW how long is it good for if I don't put it in the fridge?

 

[Ó Flannagáin]

I'll tell ya how I noticed mine was working, after 1.5 days I tilted it and saw bubbles hitting the side of the glass, was definitely doing something, used it that night and worked just fine, in fact, it worked for two batches back-to-back.

 

[Raffie]

I use a flash light to shine from the top to see how many bubbles I got going.

Even tho it could look like nothing is happening with the light you can see the bubbles. Where there is bubbles there is life.