Yeast starter question

[dannyl]

I am doing a yeast starter and I used a 2 cup water to one half cup DME mixture. After boiling and cooling and getting everything into the flask I turned on the stir plate and it has been stirring over night. When looking at it the morning it seems like the yeast/sediment in the bottom of the flask is almost completely taking over with almost no visible water (this is after I turned the stir plate off to see the progress). Can I add water or anything to it or will it be okay?

 

[philipCT]

I am doing a yeast starter and I used a 2 cup water to one half cup DME mixture. After boiling and cooling and getting everything into the flask I turned on the stir plate and it has been stirring over night. When looking at it the morning it seems like the yeast/sediment in the bottom of the flask is almost completely taking over with almost no visible water (this is after I turned the stir plate off to see the progress). Can I add water or anything to it or will it be okay?

I always measure my starters in liters and grams because the math is so easy, so I first convert your starter to metric:

2 cups of water = 473ml (let's call that 500ml for the moment)
1/2 cup of DME weights about 2.8oz which equals about 57 grams

10grams of DME per 100ml of water gives you a 1.036 starter so you're right in the ballpark there.

You haven't said what yeast or how much you put into the starter, but if you put 1 Smack Pak of recent vintage, you should have had about 85Bn cells to start, and after 24 hours of spinning you'd get a 1.2 growth rate to produce 148Bn cells. (see BrewersFriend Yeast Start calculator)

So, if the above assumption about yeast is good, I would say you are good. Dont add anything. I believe if you cold crashed your starter you'd end up with a good compact 1/2" deep yeast cake at the bottom.

Hope this helps!

 

[dannyl]

I used White Labs WLP051 California V liquid yeast. Thanks so much for your help!