# Yeast starters again - starter ratio in "Brew Classic European Bee



## mr_wibble (5/10/15)

Ok, so the classic defacto starter ratio is 100g DME to 1000ml of water, or a wort of 1.040 (I assume these are the same).
This is what I typically use anyway.

However reading "Brew Classic European Beers at Home" ISBN 1-85249-117-5 it says ~ pp37

[paraphrasing]

"bring approximately [...] 250ml of water to the boil and then add [...] 50-60 grams of malt extract"

Surely they mean liquid malt extract here ? It does not specify dry or liquid.

Otherwise this is at least twice as strong as the classic.


----------



## Jack of all biers (5/10/15)

Mr Wibble said:


> Surely they mean liquid malt extract here ? It does not specify dry or liquid.
> 
> Otherwise this is at least twice as strong as the classic.


Yeah he does. P.68 - talks about the Malt extract versions being with "malt extract syrup" and all the recipes in which he provides versions for partials he describes the malt extract as 'syrup'.

I think at the time of publishing, in Britain this was what was readily available


----------



## Danscraftbeer (5/10/15)

The only way I have found so far as newby of calculating Yeast accurately is cold crashed sediment. Its what you get regardless of Sugar Gravity accuracy. Calculated as thickest etc. Mr Malty compared to Beersmith yeast calculators.
In time and experience I learn to wing it more with a feel but that only comes from experience and recordings of,,,,,,,,,,,, everything. -_-


----------



## MHB (6/10/15)

Remembering that the book is over 10 years old, a fair bit of brewing knowledge has been refined or perhaps just become accepted wisdom.
55g of LME (~80% solids) is about 44g of solids add 250ml (g) of water and you have 44g in 305g so 14.4oP or 1.058 SG

When we are growing yeast we provide food, which is the mass in solution in the starter, O2 dissolved in the starter or available during reproduction, its quite well known that reproduction at higher gravities will result in more cell mass as there is more food available, given enough O2. Unfortunately higher gravities also lead to higher stress levels on yeast, more mutations and lower yeast vitality, the accepted 10oP wort for reproduction is a compromise. The amount of food is a limiting factor in the amount of yeast you can grow, the newer work on Braukaiser is worth a look. Go back a couple of decades and it was all about the mass of yeast, now we are more focused on the quality of yeast - time are a changing.

If you want leading edge yeast farming the guys at Weihenstephan are the go to people, they grow yeast at low temperatures, with incremental addition of wort as food and oxygen, keeping the gravity of the starter at around 3oP and are getting cell counts like 300 million per mL, about 3 times what you will get in a constantly aerated, stirred all in starter. and its all healthy vital yeast
Mark


----------



## Mardoo (6/10/15)

Would you have a reference for the Weihenstephan technique? I'd love to read up on that. I didn't come up with anything on google.


----------



## MHB (6/10/15)

There is a bit of discussion in "The Handbook of Brewing" and a couple of other mentions in other brewing texts. Part of what I mentioned was second-hand from a brewer who went to a talk by one of the yeast/brewer guys from Weihenstephan.
If you Google up incremental yeast feeding it's not a new concept, even a post or two on AHB.
Mark


----------

