Let's Make A Starter

There is a lot of conflicting information on the Toobs about starters and when/if you need them. I use them when I have a wort with a gravity over 1050 because all the pitching rate charts say you should pitch more than an activator pack provides.

Here is how I make a starter:

Smack that pack!








Boil 2 cups of water and 1/2 cup of light DME for 10 minutes.








Chill. Keep it covered because your fridge really needs to be cleaned out.







Clean and sanitize all your junk. #2 stopper, thermometer, funnel, scissors, airlock, that bottle you got from your Uncle Rod.







Drink a Flying Dog while continuing to chill.








When the starter wort is chilled to 75 degrees or so, pour it in that bottle you got from your Uncle Rod.







Pitch the yeast into the starter wort.








Shake shake shake your booty.








Airlock and let it ferment for a day or so. Krausen can come and go fast, so you might miss it.










When fermentation slows, or the morning of brew day, throw the starter in the fridge.










Mow the grass, do all your chores, and then brew up your batch.








When you are ready to pitch, you should see a nice big yeast cake at the bottom of that bottle your Uncle Rod gave you. Decant most of the evil starter beer off the cake, shake up what is left and pitch it into your wort.





Enjoy fermentation fireworks.

Big Ol' Starter

I'm getting ready to brew my first "big" beer. With an original gravity of 1070, the pitching rate should be around 200 billion yeast cells. The Wyeast activator smack packs give you about 100 billion, so in order to grow that I made a starter on Friday evening.

A starter is just a small batch of beer really. It gives the yeast something to eat so they can go forth and multiply. I made this starter with some old (very old) dry malt extract that came with all the brewing gear my dad gave to me.

I usually use an OJ starter just to wake up the yeast and double check their viability. This is important when I'm reusing washed/harvested yeast because I want to make sure everything is OK before I dump it into five gallons of wort. For this beer however, I need to double the number of yeast cells and the predominant school of thought says that when doing that, you want your starter to closely resemble the wort into which it will end up. It should be ready to pitch in a day or so.

I had to tape the stopper in the bottle to keep it from popping out - I guess it is a little too big. Classy looking, no?

Good Lord What Is Happening Around Here?!

What a day.

#1: If you're paying attention, you know that tomorrow is supposed to be drinking day for batch #2. It's not going to be though because we ALREADY DRANK IT ALL OMGWTF! We have no self control around here. Once again, heading for the pool this afternoon, we blew the keg. The worst part is that today, for the first time, it was delicious instead of just so-so. So once again, we are without homebrew. Oh the huge manatee!

#2: Realizing that we need to brew every weekend if we are ever going to build up a backlog, I ran to the LHBS to buy ingredients. Once I got back, I prepared to make Tyler's OJ Starter only to realize we had no OJ. We did have lemonade though, and that's got citric acid and sugar so that should work right? WRONG. Do not use lemonade ever. So now the batch is done and I'm ready to pitch and there is no activity in the starter bottle and OH NO I THINK ALL MY YEAST ARE DEAD AT THE BOTTOM OH CRAP! I'm boned, except...

#3: I've got a wheat beer pretty much done fermenting in the basement (batch #4). I cleaned and sanitized a keg and racked batch #4 to it with the intent of letting it secondary at room temp in the keg. After that, I poured my new yeast-less wort on to the batch #4 yeast cake. I hear this is fine to do, especially if both batches are the same kind of beer so all should be fine. It was a bunch of extra work that I was not planning on doing tonight. I started brewing around 6pm and just finished at 10:30. I'm exhausted.

I'll be brewing again on Monday. Wheeeee!

Thanks to Aric for the advice on how to treat a keg as a secondary.

Edit: At 11:15 pm (a few minutes after posting this) I went out to the kitchen to get a drink and yes my starter is active. Maybe lemonade does work after all. I'll use it in Monday's batch.

Edit #2: This morning, there is still very little activity in the starter. I would advise against lemonade. On the upside, the batch is fermenting like a mad man.

Batch #4 - Weizenbier

Brew Date: 6/13/08
Recipe:
6.6 lbs Muntons Plain Wheat LME
1oz. Mt. Hood Hops @ 5.2% (Bittering)
.5oz. Mt. Hood Hops @ 5.2% (Finishing)
Wyeast 1056 Yeast

OG: 1.050
6/20: 1.014
FG: 1.014
ABV: 4.7%

We're trying a Wheat beer, since Jess seems to really like them. I used Tyler's OJ starter and it worked like a charm. 4:1 water to OJ and then added the washed 1056 yeast. Within a couple of hours it was inflating the (sanitized) balloon I stuck on the bottle. 60 minute boil, 10 minutes in the ice bath, pitched the starter and 12 hours later it is bubbling happily in the basement, no problems at all.