yeast starter question

Yeast & Fermentation
1

Hi all,

I am going to make my first yeast starter tonight in advance of a brew for a 3 gallon barleywine either Friday night or saturday morning.

I’ve read around but have not found the answer to my question. Basically needing to know how much yeast to use in my starter.

I harvested one quart jar and two pint jars of us-05 from my Chinnok IPA a few weeks ago. The qt jar shows about 1/4 inch settled to the bottom, one pint shows about the same and the 3rd pint has about 1/2 inch settled to the bottom.

Am I over thinking this or Do I just choose one, swirl it up and pitch it into the starter wort?

One other question is on the DME to water ratio. I’ve seen/ready 1/2 cup dme to 2 cups H2O, and also one cup DME to 2 cups H2O. Is there a rule of thumb for this?

2

You’ll be much better off weighing your DME. I use .75 oz. per cup of water. Shoot for a starter gravity in the 1.030-35 range.

3

check out http://www.mrmalty.com or (I prefer) http://www.yeastcalc.com. You are going to use the ‘repitch from slurry’ option. One question though, did you wash the yeast at all after harvesting from your IPA, or just mix up the cake and put that in a jar? The reason being, you are getting a lot of trub, hop matter, and proteins when doing that, not just yeast. Lots of threads on washing yeast if you need to read more on that.

[quote=“Kgetch”]
One other question is on the DME to water ratio. I’ve seen/ready 1/2 cup dme to 2 cups H2O, and also one cup DME to 2 cups H2O. Is there a rule of thumb for this?[/quote]

If you can bring yourself to go Canadian for a bit, the easiest way to remember it is in grams/liter. For a regular ‘strength’/gravity starter, you want to use 100g of DME for every 1L of water. You want to shoot for your starter wort to be around 1.036 SG, or 9 brix/*plato.

4

Thanks guys,

I dont own a scale so I cant weigh out anything per se.

I did wash the yeast when I collected it. Started with a gallon juice jug. Poured the trub into that and allowed it to settle for 20 mins or so, then poured into the Quart jar and one pint.

Allowed the jug to settle again for about 20 mins, then poured into the 3rd pint jar.

Those jars have been in the fridge for about 3 or 4 weeks.

I’ll check out those links!

5

CLEARLY…I know only enough to be a danger to those close enough to drink the beer I brew!

I was just looking at the Mrmalty calculator. I think it is telling me that my slurry is 54% viable and I need roughly 100 billion cells if my intended brew is 1.048 for a 3 gal batch.

It seems to make an assumption that I have a clue to the difference between a thin vs thicker slurry , etc…

Guess I better get to reading some more and mess around with that calulator!

6
http://woodlandbrew.blogspot.com/2012/1 ... posed.html

Some more reading for you.

I’ve never washed yeast. Just dumped it into a mason jar. Then scooped out 3-4 spoonfuls and added to .75+ gallon starter.

7

UPDATE:
I went ahead with my starter last night. Mixed about 1/2 cup DME to 2 cups water.

Brought to a boil for about 10 mins. Cooled to about 64 degrees very fast…

Poured the starter wort into a quart mason jar, Decanted the beer off the top of one of the pints (the one with the most settled yeast), then poured that into the quart jar.

Covered with foil and swirled for a few mins. I did this several time last evening.

I checked this a.m. and very active krosen (sp?) on top! Maybe too much yeast in there???

Anyway, I’ll be brewing a 3 gal barleywine batch tomorrow. Per some reading, it appears it is very difficult to overpitch so I guess I’ll pitch the whole starter or is there any other advise out there?

Maybe pitch half, save half???

8

Pitch it all. You only made a quart starter and likely much less since you are using a quart mason jar. For a 5 gallon batch of Barleywine I would have made at least a gallon starter so for your 3 gallon batch I would have made one with 2-3 quarts. But it depends on how fresh your harvested yeast is. You are probably fine.

9

I like to keep life simple therefore I was wondering when making an extract IPA over 1.060 would folks recommend hydrating a single pack of dry yeast ( e.g 05 or Danstar West Coast) or go the route which the my LHBS suggests and to dump two packs in without hydrating. Are they just trying to sell me more yeast? Would two packs give me a yeast bite? Any thoughts?

10

[quote=“Kgetch”]I need roughly 100 billion cells if my intended brew is 1.048 for a 3 gal batch.[/quote]Not much “wine” in that barleywine at 1.048! :wink:

11

Yea, are you sure you are making a barleywine?

12

IMO 1 pack (11g) is plenty for an Ale up to 1.070. Above that use 2 packs.

Lager I might use a 1.060 cut off.

Over pitching will not give you a “yeast bite”. The yeast will fall out of suspension and have little effect in that way.

13

Please do yourself a huge favor and buy a digital scale. You will use it more then you think.

14

Either way would be fine. Personally, I often use a single unrehydrated pack for beers up to about 1.070. No problems.

15

[quote=“shizzy”][quote=“Kgetch”]

I dont own a scale so I cant weigh out anything per se.

[/quote]

Please do yourself a huge favor and buy a digital scale. You will use it more then you think.[/quote]

Even a cheap $6 diet scale would work.

16

[quote=“Denny”][quote=“shizzy”][quote=“Kgetch”]

I dont own a scale so I cant weigh out anything per se.

[/quote]

Please do yourself a huge favor and buy a digital scale. You will use it more then you think.[/quote]

Even a cheap $6 diet scale would work.[/quote]

Thanks all!

I did get a scale this past weekend. As far as the “wine” in the barleywine comments…the 1.048 I quoted was just the “default” number I saw on the mrmalty calculator when I was looking at that website and trying to figure it out.

Mine came in at 1.061 so there is a tiny bit of “wine” in the barleywine…not what I hoped but I’m living and learning!

Thanks again!