I’ve read where you make your starter on Wednesday for Saturday, Thursday for Saturday, or 24 hours before. I haven’t bought a stir plate, so how long prior to brew day do you make your starter. Refrigerate 24 or 12 hours before added to the wort? thank you.
For me it depends on the size of the starter. For small starters 1000ml or so (1.050ish beers) I make it the day before and pitch the whole thing. For larger starters 1200ml - 2000ml I will make them 3 days before. I’ll let it sit on the stir plate for 24-36hrs and then cold crash for 24-36hrs and then decant the spent wort and pitch just the yeast.
Then there’s starters for lagers which need to be real big. That you’d want to start maybe 5-7days before to build up to the size you need. Make starter, spin, crash, decant… make bigger starter, spin, crash, decant… etc…
It is my understanding that using a stir plate will approx. double or triple the cell production. So if I did a 1300ml/1 cup dme starter(Wyeast1056) for my Speckled Heifer will I be OK or is this too large a starter?
Use Mr. Malty
http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.htmlPut in your estimated OG, final volume, production date (date on yeast pack) and click on the drop down button and choose ‘stir plate’. Then click calculate and the bottom line will tell you the size starter you need to make (# Liters of starter required). And when making your starter use 100g of DME for every liter of water.
