First time yeast starter

[gusty]

G'day brewers, I'm looking at doing a yeast starter for the first time soon, I was wondering what size starter do I need for a 23L lager, what's a good brand of yeast and what's a good method to make one.
Thanks for any advice!.

 

[mosto]

Hi gusty,

What size starter, depends on a few factors. Batch size, ale or lager, original gravity and age of the yeast your using all play a part in determining the size of starter. Google Mr Malty and you'll find a yeast pitching calculator that will give you a good idea of what you're looking at.

Personally, I draw off a couple of litres of wort from the same batch I'm pitching to. I no chill so this allows me to get my starter up and running while the main batch is cooling. I put that 2L in the fridge to cool, then when it's cooled, I pitch my yeast and put it on my stirplate. As soon as I see some activity (bubbles rising, krausen forming), I put my main batch in the fermenter and throw in my whole starter. If you can't/don't want to use wort from the same batch, you can boil up some DME in water at a ratio of 1:10 and use that to create your starter.

If you don't have a stirplate, you can just give the container a shake as each time you walk past. I did this for quite a few starters and it works fine, just slower than a stirplate.

That's a brief description of how I go about it, but there a varying methods and theories. Have a search around on here and you''l find some pretty good info. If you find anything written by Wolfy, take note. Haven't seen him on here for a while, but when I was educating myself about starters I always found his advice to be top notch.

 

[storeboughtcheeseburgers]

Plenty of information available here: http://aussiehomebrewer.com/topic/54900-basics-of-making-and-using-a-yeast-starter/

 

[mofox1]

Hi gusty,

What size starter, depends on a few factors. Batch size, ale or lager, original gravity and age of the yeast your using all play a part in determining the size of starter. Google Mr Malty and you'll find a yeast pitching calculator that will give you a good idea of what you're looking at.

Personally, I draw off a couple of litres of wort from the same batch I'm pitching to. I no chill so this allows me to get my starter up and running while the main batch is cooling. I put that 2L in the fridge to cool, then when it's cooled, I pitch my yeast and put it on my stirplate. As soon as I see some activity (bubbles rising, krausen forming), I put my main batch in the fermenter and throw in my whole starter. If you can't/don't want to use wort from the same batch, you can boil up some DME in water at a ratio of 1:10 and use that to create your starter.

If you don't have a stirplate, you can just give the container a shake as each time you walk past. I did this for quite a few starters and it works fine, just slower than a stirplate.

That's a brief description of how I go about it, but there a varying methods and theories. Have a search around on here and you''l find some pretty good info. If you find anything written by Wolfy, take note. Haven't seen him on here for a while, but when I was educating myself about starters I always found his advice to be top notch.

Easy as!

Just curious though regarding the SG of the wort. When you do a starter with DME, you aim for around 1.020 or so, if you do it with wort from your current batch it's going to higher, potentially much, much higher (ie a nice big stout starting > 1.060).

Since it's not mentioned, I assume it works just fine... but:
- Would it help to dilute the wort? (ie - draw off 1L and add 1L boiled water)
- Could you draw off a few litres from the final runnings of the mash, and boil that down to 1.020?

The first option would be the easiest - but would impact overall efficiency (for those that care about numbers). The second option could be a pain because you've got to watch a separate pot from boiling over, but the plus side is that your not wasting anything.

Since I always seem to make things hard for myself, while telling myself it's the "right" thing to do, I'd go for the second option. Curious as to how others see it.

 

[mosto]

I've always taken that the ideal gravity for a starter is 1.040, read that somewhere in my research, but TBH I don't think it matters greatly unless you're trying to revive yeast with particularly low viability, in which case you'd be stepping it up in small quantities anyway. Most of my beers have an OG of 1.050ish and the starters seem to kick off ok.