Making Starters,

[Lindsay Dive]

Hi,

Basically being a very lazy person, I am wondering if anybody knows how much Light Dried Malt Extract do you use per litre of water to give you a S.G. of about 1.045?
I only brew with grain and have noe idea how much to use and am too lazy to keep checking with the hydrometer.
I thought there would be a whole bunch of brewers out there that would know straight off the top of their head!!

Regards,
Lindsay.

 

[colinw]

About 120g of DME per litre should do it.

100g per litre gives 1.038.

 

[warrenlw63]

Lindsay,

Rough rule of thumb. Not precise but it works well enough. 3kg of DME in a 23 litre batch will give you around 1.045-1.050

My calculations say about 130-140g per litre should see you right.

Warren -

 

[Doc]

I go by the 100gr/litre of powdered light malt extract rule of thumb for all my starters.

Beers,
Doc

 

[warrenlw63]

Sorry Colin,

You must have put yours in while I was typing mine. Pipped me on the post. :lol:

Warren -

 

[warrenlw63]

Doc got me too. This is a hot thread.

Warren -

 

[Doc]

There is also a Start Wort Calc here.

Beers
Doc

 

[warrenlw63]

Also easy to do on ProMash.

I just calculated a recipe on a 1 litre batch. 125g generic DME gives an OG of 1.048.

This seems a good way to do it. My last post I used a combination of guesswork and a pocket calculator.

Warren -

 

[colinw]

I always use 100g per litre because its easy to remember, and when I've bothered to measure it the SG is always around the 1.038-1.040 region. With that small amount of DME and water, minor inaccuracies in measurement make the results a bit inconsistent but you can't really go wrong if you stick to the any of the numbers quoted in this thread.

Wow, that question sure generated a lot of replies.

The Beer Recipator roughly agrees with the figures people have quoted as well.

If you can't be bothered making DME based starters, why not save and freeze a PET bottle of wort from a normal gravity all-grain batch? Then just thaw, bring to the boil, cool and make a starter - possibly diluting to get the OG down to 1.040 or so. An all-grain starter will probably have more nutrients for the yeast, and being hopped will have some antiseptic properties as well.

cheers,
Colin

 

[Lindsay Dive]

Hi All,

Thankyou for the immediate and very good responses.

Promash.......how thick am I, did not even give it a thought.

Thanks again,
Lindsay.

 

[pint of lager]

I stick to 100 gms per litre, easy to remember.

If you are a stickler for detail, from my reading, to make yeast, use sg around 1.030 (say for on stir plates where you throw the used wort away and just pitch slurry) and to make starters use 1.040-1.045.

 

[sosman]

100 g/L is the go.

I am a tad forgetful though so I posted a recipe (for 2 L) where I can get to it:

http://brewiki.org/brewsta/recipes/?sys=si...arter.beer=view

 

[HumDum]

There is also a Start Wort Calc here.

Beers
Doc

[post="65229"][/post]​

That's a nifty tool Doc, thanks for posting it.

 

[vlbaby]

I'm in the 0.1kg/L club too. It makes it easier to remember especially when you've had a few. :beer: Always works ok me for, and the last time i checked it was around 1.040 sg mark.

Just as a side interest, how many people here taste their starters before pitching?
I only ever smell them ,never taste. I cant see that 10 billion yeast cells crammed on top of a waste slurry is gonna taste good either way. h34r:


vlbaby.

 

[Bilph]

I use LME and use about 150g for just under 1.5l which puts me in the same ballpark as the 100g/l DME starters.

vlbaby,
Most times I taste my starters. I wash my yeast, but only with cooled boiled water, no acid yet, so I like to make sure the yeast is still sound.
It can be an interesting exercise anyway to taste the difference in yeasts at the starter stage. They're usually quite sweet and not unappealing, and you can detect some of the characteristics which are evident in your final brew.

 

[Peter Wadey]

vlbaby wrote:

Just as a side interest, how many people here taste their starters before pitching?
I only ever smell them ,never taste

vlbaby,
Ok, I'll confess!
When I'm just pitching the slurry from a starter I drink it all the time.
Lovely, bloody lovely.

Pete

 

[Weizguy]

<chopped>

Just as a side interest, how many people here taste their starters before pitching?

vlbaby. </chopped>

[post="65327"][/post]​

Absolutely. U don't want to pitch a contaminated culture.
I would normally pour some into a small glass for sampling, to confirm that I can pitch the rest with confidence.

Have made some great tasting starters, too, coz I hop them.

Seth

edited coz I removed html tags and needed to repair

 

[Dunkel_Boy]

I usually make a 600mL starter. 60g in a saucepan on the scales, and add water up to 660g. This is a gravity of 1040. Boil for 20 minutes, at the start of the boil add half a packet of cheap yeast and a teaspoon or so of hops. Cool it in the sink, and pour the whole lot on top of your yeast in your 1L starter bottle. With liquid yeast, my starters consistently start in 30-60 minutes. Just make sure the cheap yeast you add is nicely boiled, ie very much dead. The boiling should increase the gravity a few points too.