Yeast Starter Question

[joecav]

I made a yeast starter yesterday with Safale S-04 dry yeast. was in a rush and forgot to boil a little water ahead of time to rehydrate the dry yeast. didnt feel like just putting the yeast into the jar so i put in in room temperature tap water that had been through a brita filter (my tap water is pretty clean already)...is this ok? Is there anyone who wouldn't have used that water? Thanks.

 

[BigB]

You're fine. But in the future, you really don't need a starter for dry yeast. Warm tap water to rehydrate is fine though. There are way too much yeast for any puny microbes in the water to harm them.

 

[winvarin]

You should be OK. There is going to be a lot of yeast in a packet of S-04 anyway. For rehydration (and I'll probably get flamed for this), I usually use a bottle of room temperature (pre-sealed) drinking water. Our water supply sucks so we buy those flats of .5 liter bottles for drinking. I usually just sit one out first thing in the morning on brewday so that it has time to come to room temp while I am doing my other stuff.

I have a 500ml flask that I use for rehydration. During the boil, the flask gets a StarSan bath. When I put my chiller in the wort, I remove the flask from the StarSan then open the water bottle and give the neck a quick swab with an alcohol-soaked cotton ball. I put about 200 ml of the room temp water into my flask and pour in the dried yeast (the outside of the yeast pack also gets a wipe with the cotton ball.

Aluminum foil goes over the mouth to the flask. About 15 min later, I give it a swirl to mix the remaining dried yeast and water.

When my wort is chilled, transferred and aerated, the foil comes off and the lip of the flask gets a swipe with a new alcohol-soaked cotton ball. I give it about 30 sec or so to air dry, then into the fermenter she goes.

Many a clean fermentation has started this way at my house.

If my OG calls for more than one 11g pack of yeast, the flask just gets more water and more yeast.

 

[TravisT]

edit - been answered

 

[joecav]

thanks, i figured I shouldnt be worried but thought i should check with masses before pitching something potentially harmful into my beer

 

[el_caro]

I made a yeast starter yesterday with Safale S-04 dry yeast. was in a rush and forgot to boil a little water ahead of time to rehydrate the dry yeast. didnt feel like just putting the yeast into the jar so i put in in room temperature tap water that had been through a brita filter (my tap water is pretty clean already)...is this ok? Is there anyone who wouldn't have used that water? Thanks.

Did you make a starter or just rehydrate with tap water?

 

[joecav]

Did you make a starter or just rehydrate with tap water?

I rehydrated the yeast with the tap water then added it to the starter wort.