A couple of things that you may want to change next time: 1) get a bigger jug, enough to contain the fermenting starter at about half full and 2) make sure you rinse the bleach really really really well or use a no rinse sanitizer instead.
That starter should be done and ready to pitch either day. “Crash” means “crash cool” - put the jug into the fridge until all the cloudiness drops out and leaves a layer of yeast and trub at the bottom.
For what it’s worth, you may want to check your instruments. At least one of those numbers has to be wrong.
Anyway, 24 hours may not be enough time for the starter to ferment out fully. Even 48 hours isn’t guaranteed. As big a starter as this is, I would definitely suggest that you crash it until it clears and pour off the majority of the starter “beer”. No sense putting almost a gallon of nasty low-gravity unhopped beer into your nice perfect batch of wort.
Which do you think is wrong? I used a kitchen scale and took out 100 g from a 500 g bag. The 4L was with a measuring cup. Not exact science but I think probably close enough. Or are you suggesting that I am reading the hygrometer wrong?
Thanks for the advice.
Probably your volume was a little higher than 4 liters. Like maybe 4.5 liters or so. 400 grams in 4 liters would be about 1.036. No big deal.
Well, the beer is made. I decanted the “beer” off the yeast, left a 1/4 inch or so of liquid and swirled it into suspension and just pitched it. There was activity in the air lock within 2 minutes. Pretty impressive.
I had about a gallon left over from my boil and so I put that into the jug that had the yeast in it to see what would happen. But, the mouth was a bit big and so when I put the rubber bung in, it slipped in too far. When I went to pull it out, I got the airlock but no stopper. So, there’s a rubber stopper in the bottom of my 1 gal wort. Anyone know if this is going to be a bad thing? I am sure it isn’t ideal but should I just dump it now or let it ferment out and get the stopper when I bottle. I will definitely taste before I bottle.
Thanks.
Stopper shouldn’t hurt anything. Go ahead and let if ferment out and retrieve the stopper afterwards.