Yeast starter with lme

[dan_man]

Hi I'm a new first time brewer and I want to make a yeast starter for my first brew. I have watched and read a lot of articles about making a yeast starter but they all use dme. I'm plan on using lme in my starter and I wanted to know do I do the same 2 cups water to 1/2 lme?

 

[JonM]

To convert, just add about 20% more LME. So if you planned to use 4 oz (by weight) of DME, use 5 oz (again, by weight) of LME.

You want your starter OG to be about 1.030-1.040, so if you do use 5 oz of LME, you need about a quart of water rather than the pint you mentioned.

What's your recipe? If you're using a 5 gallon recipe, a one pint starter is probably going to be too small, but one quart might be spot on.

 

[flars]

You would need about 20% more LME than DME, by weight. Trying to measure by volume can be very inaccurate. LME has about 37 points per gallon, while DME has about 44.
It will also be a good idea to use a pitch rate/starter calculator. Just making a certain size starter may not propagate the number of cells you need for your beer. Production date, viability, of the yeast is one of the main determining factors for the size of starter needed.

Her are two good starter calculators.
http://www.brewersfriend.com/yeast-pitch-rate-and-starter-calculator/
http://www.homebrewdad.com/yeast_calculator.php

 

[dan_man]

To convert, just add about 20% more LME. So if you planned to use 4 oz (by weight) of DME, use 5 oz (again, by weight) of LME.

You want your starter OG to be about 1.030-1.040, so if you do use 5 oz of LME, you need about a quart of water rather than the pint you mentioned.

What's your recipe? If you're using a 5 gallon recipe, a one pint starter is probably going to be too small, but one quart might be spot on.

I'm using a hoppy ipa kit from a local home brew shop and I'm adding 3.3 lbs of rye lme. I also only have a 1000ml flask.

 

[JonM]

If you're adding an extra bottle of LME to a kit recipe (which I assume is 1.050 OG or above), you'll definitely need a starter, and probably bigger than 1000 ml. If so, you can use a gallon jug or something like that.

If you can figure out what your OG will be, you can use the links in an earlier post to figure out how big your starter needs to be.

 

[dan_man]

So what would happen if I made only like a 800ml starter. That would still be better then no starter right

 

[z-bob]

I made a bunch of LME starter a couple of weeks ago in pint canning jars. 55 grams of LME in each jar, filled with dechlorinated tapwater with a little yeast nutrient dissolved in it.

Put on canning lids and rings, and processed in a pressure cooker at 15 psi for (I think) 20 minutes.

 

[WoodlandBrew]

So what would happen if I made only like a 800ml starter. That would still be better then no starter right

Sure, an 800ml starter with an OG of 9°P will grow somewhere south of 100 billion cells. On a stir plate it will take a couple of days, and without it will take about a week.

You might consider using your fermentation vessel in place of your flask.

 

[flars]

So what would happen if I made only like a 800ml starter. That would still be better then no starter right

A starter that does not propagate the cells needed to bring a beer to FG is as good as no starter. Not enough yeast and poor aeration are the main cause for a post that starts out as, "Why did my beer stop at 1.022?"
http://www.brewersfriend.com/yeast-pitch-rate-and-starter-calculator/
http://www.homebrewdad.com/yeast_calculator.php

You don't need a flask to make a starter. Any flat bottom container that will hold the stir bar in the center will work.

 

[dan_man]

So I ended up using a 64 oz growler and made about 1.75l starter. Thanks for all you help guys