I am going to make my first starter this weekend. I am using a vial of white labs yeast. How much water and DME should I use. I remember seeing 2 cups of water and 1/2 cup of DME. Is that correct?
Easiest ratio uses the metric system. 100 grams DME per liter of water will get you a 1.040 gravity wort. The size of your starter will depend on many factors including gravity, batch size and even beer style. There are handy starter calculators for this.
This is a great tool and gives you all the info you need to make the optimal starter for the beer you have planned.
Here is the instructions I have for the Ale that I am going to brew. The starter calculator has some questions I don’t know the answer to
It looks like I will need 7.2 ounces of DME. How much water would this require?
[quote=“556man”]Here is the instructions I have for the Ale that I am going to brew. The starter calculator has some questions I don’t know the answer to
[/quote]
Brewers Friend calculator:
Enter OG of beer: 1.061
Enter the volume you will have in the fermentor: 5.0 gallons
Enter pitch rate: Pro Brewer 0.75 (Ale)
Enter yeast type: Liquid
Enter number of packs: 1
Enter production Date: ?
Update button
The calc tells you how many yeast cells you need compared to what you have on hand.
Go to the next screen down.
Select: Grab From Above button.
Select: Method of making starter.
Enter a starter size. Start with 0.5 liter. Calc will give you estimated propagated cells and if not sufficient wil have message in red. If 0.5 liter is not sufficient, enter 1 liter.
Play with the numbers a bit to see what the changes are for starter sizes and reaults. Don’t forget to use the update buttons when you make a change. Always check the Production Date to make sure this stays the same in the calc.
Got it thanks for you help, I appreciate it.
I am going to need 3.6 ounces of DME and 34 ounces of water
Starter size is entered before the calculator can produce the amount of DME required. Optimum OG of a starter is 1.036. A 0.5 liter starter will need less DME than a 1.0 liter starter to achieve the optimum OG.
A 0.5 liter starter will result in fewer cells being propagated than a 1.0 liter starter.
Here is a link to a free conversion calculator which you can keep the shortcut to on your desk top.
http://joshmadison.com/convert-for-windows/Works great for liters to quarts and grams to ounces.
[quote=“flars”][quote=“556man”]
A 0.5 liter starter will result in fewer cells being propagated than a 1.0 liter starter.[/quote][/quote]
Yes, a 0.5 liter starter is so small that you probably don’t get much growth at all past what would be in a fresh pack or vial of yeast. I’d expect a 0.5 liter starter to max out around 120 Billion cells, which isn’t much over the 100 Billion cells you’d expect from a fresh vial of yeast without a starter. A 1 liter starter should get you something like 200-250 Billion, depending on how fresh the yeast was to start.
