# Yeast Starter



## wombil (21/11/11)

Hey Guys,
When I was droving I used to start the bread yeast off with flour and sugar in a pannikin of water.
Would this work ok with making a beer yeast starter.Don't see why not?
Will save running out for other stuff.


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## pyrosx (21/11/11)

You -can- start yeast off with just sugar - but I believe the general thinking is that you should feed yeast in the starter the same sort of stuff that you want them to eat later on. This works for bread (feed with flour) the same as it does with beer (feed with malt).

A kilo bag of dry malt extract doesn't really cost much...


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## Florian (21/11/11)

I don't think you'd want to end up with flour in your unfermented wort, you might be introducing all sorts of bugs and end up with sour beer.
Also,I'm assuming you did this to literally start the yeast, not to build up cell count (which a starter is often wrongly referred to).


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## raven19 (21/11/11)

You want to use wort or malt extract in our starters ideally, plain sugar can make your yeast lazy as they will prefer the sugar over the malt when it comes time to add them to the main wort in the fermentor.


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## stux (21/11/11)

If you're using dry yeast, just rehydrate in tepid water, no need for sugar etc

If you have liquid yeast or are trying to build up the population you can make a starter to activate or propagate the yeast

A starter should be made of malt to about 1.030-1.040 SG, so you can use DME or LME or wort. Best to not use sugar, dextrose etc, if you plan on fermenting nice malty beer 

100g of DME in 1L will be about perfect at 1.036


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## wombil (21/11/11)

Thanks for the replies fellers,
It's not that I'm too lousy to buy a bit of stuff,just it is a fair haul from here to get it.It's just that I have about 100 ml of washed us-05 that I would like to try as something different in a smash sort of thing, 3.5 kg BB Ale,12 Gm magnum sort of thing.Made one like this before and wasn't too bad.
About the flour,I know that the old Bulimba Brewery in Brisbane used to make their beer from it as I knew the salesman who sold it to them.
He approached Castlemaine XXXX to sell to them and they told him to get stuffed as they only used the best malted barley from the Darling Downs.
Most of us drank XXXX but Bulimba sold a lot too.
Not advertising,just waffling along.


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## stux (21/11/11)

I just set my all-grain batches up to over-estimate my kettle loss... 

I then filter my trub and use the wort for starters... nothing more to buy... and when I do need some extra DME... my local IGA stocks Cooper's Light Dry Malt


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## dr K (21/11/11)

If you using dry yeast then you should rehydrate. Nothing wrong with pitching heaps straight in the wort, or a starter but you will lose about 50% (ref Clayton Cone and White/Palmer) when you first pitch dry (un-rehyrated) yeast the cells have no control what enters them, the very sugar in the wort can and will damage the yeast. If you don't have "Yeast" here it is. Sprinkle room temperature dry yeast onto 10 times it weight of 41C sterile water, wait 15 minutes, stir. Let sit 5 minutes then gradually atemperate (use small volumes of wort) till close to wort temp..pitch. (This procedure should also be done within 30 minutes)
K


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## wombil (21/11/11)

Thanks for all the info Guys.


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