Starter Water Treatment

Ingredients
1

I’m interested in what you guys typically do for water treatment on starters. I’ve had some problems with WLP833 taking a week or more to fully settle out in starters and I’m beginning to wonder if it’s related to my water being so low in calcium (~14ppm). I do add calcium to my water for a full brew, but I’ve always assumed that whatever minerals were in the DME were good enough for my starters. Typically, the only thing I do to my starter water is add Campden to knock out the chloramine.

I’m starting to use the SNS method for my starters so settling and decanting may no longer be a big concern. However, if there’s anything water-wise that I can do to promote yeast health in the starter, it seems like that would be effort well-spent. Thoughts?

2

I do absolutely nothing and don’t feel any need to.

3

Same here. DME plus potable water and a touch of nutrients.

Have you tried pitching at high krausen yet? Now need to settle then. And you can make your starter the morning of brew day.

4

That’s my plan going forward. I always hated doing starters a week ahead of time so I could let them settle. Mostly I just wanted to make sure that I wasn’t missing a sign that I could be doing something to improve the yeast health.

Now that you mention it, I put a small bit of yeast nutrient in mine too. I had forgotten about that.

5

RO/distilled boiled with dme does the trick every time! Idk about lagers though…

6

The DME should have virtually all the nutrients needed by the yeast. The only thing to consider would be a bit of yeast nutrient to add zinc. However, recognize that the yeast nutrient dose would be super teeny in a yeast starter.

7

I make starters using excess wort from prior batches that I boil down to a higher gravity and freeze (and then dilute and boil for the starter). It already has the water profile from the full batch so I don’t add anything to the water. I dilute with filtered water so it’s low to zero chlorine.

8

Thanks all! One of the downsides of my overactive imagination is that I need occasional reality checks to confirm that I can really let go of something. I accept that it’s part of my personality that I’m going to obsess over some things. I just have to manage it by making sure I’m obsessing on the things that will make the most difference  :slight_smile:

9

I totally understand that obsession!  I’ve found that the perfect counterbalance for it is laziness.  Between the two of those, you hit middle ground.

10

I don’t do anything; like Denny, I don’t feel the need to do anything. As far as letting it settle, it has never really been an issue. If I am brewing on a Sunday ('cause that is what Sundays are for), I’ll make my starter on Saturday morning and set the stir plate timer for 24 hours. By the time I’m ready to pitch, the stir plate has already been off for a couple hours, and there is a nice 1/2 inch thick layer of yeast on the bottom of my 1 gallon jug, ready to go do that voodoo that it does so well.

11

I use filtered tap water and it seems to work fine.