So I had a brain fart late last night. Put a cup of DME into 1qt water instead of 1300ml. Pitched my yeast (Wyeast Thames Valley 2) and let it go. Realized this morning that the starter gravity will be nearly twice a high as expected.
This starter is for a 1.035 gravity bitter. I have more of the yeast ranched. Should I just let this one go and re-try with the correct gravity? Concerned about yeast growing in a high gravity starter being pitched into a low gravity beer.
Its such a small amount I don’t think it will matter. I assume the yeast was pretty old? That’s the only reason I could see making a starter for a beer with that low of an OG.
Well it’s a limited edition yeast, so I made a 1300ml starter a year ago and split it into 8oz jars. One little jar isn’t enough to pitch into 5 gallons of wort so I create a starter from the jars.
I think I’ll just roll with it. See what happens.
Well yes, that’s pretty old. So a starter was a good idea. And yes again, you should be fine with that starter even though it’s a higher gravity. It’s small.
My bigger concern would be did you make a big enough starter? With a yeast that old your viability must have been very low. But, on the other hand, you are making a low gravity beer. So you should be ok.
A cup (150-200 g) would be a bit much even for a 1300 mL starter. 100 g/L is a good rule of thumb.
Good info guys. The cup/1300ml ratio comes from the NB yeast starter kit instructions. It would be nice to save some $$ on DME.
This yeast is 3rd generation, and I’m not so much worried about cell count but that the yeasties evolving in the high grav wort would result in a different flavor than expected.
