You guys aren’t sick of me asking yeast starter questions yet are you??? I’ve read various instructions on how to make a yeast starter, and they all call for varying amounts of water to DME.
How much should I use of both for my starter?
Should I start one now (smack pack still in 'fridge) if I want to brew on Saturday?
I should mention I don’t have a digital scale
Never sick of questions.
www.yeastcalc.com is my go to.
How big is the beer and do you have a stir plate?
Dave
the one dave linked is the best, and yes, you should get started tonight, latest tomorrow night if you want to be able to crash the starter and dump the spent wort.
if you’re not going to crash/dump, then 48 hours ahead is probably sufficient.
Use .75 oz. DME per cup of water for a 1.035ish starter. I like mrmalty.com.
I don’t have a stir plate, and the beer’s OG should be around 1.067.
What is crash/dump? ???
I like the easy method of 10ml to 1gm. For a 1.5 liter starter (or 1500ml), I use 150gm of DME.
Puttting the fermented starter in the fridge so the yeast drops out. Then you pour off the “beer” on top and pitch the slurry.
+1 - Metric math is easy
Made some updates to my original post. I can’t weigh the DME, so 1/2 cup, cup, etc. would be appreciated.
after the starter has fermented out usually takes about ~36 hours, put the flask, tightly covered of course, into the fridge and crash cool it. after 24-48 hours (the more the better) most of the yeast will have flocculated out to the bottom, and clear beer on top.
then just before you pitch into your main wort, take the flask out of the fridge, decant or ‘dump’ off the spent beer on top of the yeast cake (leaving just a little bit in order to swirl), swirl the yeast into suspension in order to pitch, and then pitch into your main wort.
edit eh darkside beat me to it!
This is the one advantage of Yeastcalc versus Mr Malty, the DME calculator. But I like Mr. Malty too especially for the slurry calc!
I keep the ratio of about a 1/2 cup to 2 cups of water ratio. I don’t know if this is adequate, but it was what I was told when I first starting making starters.
Eh… She’ll get over it. There won’t be a need for a blow-off at that point. Just wrap some sanitized aluminum foil over the carboy opening. Actually, I do that from the beginning. Typically if I brew on Saturday, I try and get my starter going on Monday evening or Tuesday at the latest. I’ll start cold crashing in the fridge when I get home from work on Friday (3:00ish) The yeast drops out nicely and I pour off the spent beer. You really don’t want to add that to your actual brew that you’ve worked so hard on.
I suggest going ahead and investing in a decent digital scale. The 11 pound scales are adequate. I got mine on Amazon for like 20 or 25 bucks. You’ll eventually use it for measuring DME, priming sugar, hops, grains, and any other additives to your beer.
Cheers!
yeah - and I use mine for cooking as well - very versatile and cheap.
+1. Love mine!
OK, so below is my (shotty) plan…
Don’t think you need to smack the pack that early. Actually, for making a starter, you could probably smack it right before you pitch the yeast. I usually smack my Wyeast packs about an hr before I pitch it into the starter.
Whoops! Well it’s smacked. Perhaps I should brew Thursday or Friday instead?
How long should I let the pack swell before adding it to starter?