Whats The Ideal Size Of A Starter For 22l?

[mick8882003]

So I bought one of those 5 litre bottles of distilled water for a starter, my reasoning was for five bucks I couldn't get a better bottle myself. But I am wondering on the size? Is five litres to much, I know I could probably put two or three litres in it?

So what is the ideal size for a starter?

 

[gibbocore]

i use the big 2.5 leter joice bottles, i find their pretty perfect for getting about 250mls of slurry withought krausen being too high.

 

[Adamt]

Mr Malty's starter size calculator

 

[TidalPete]

So I bought one of those 5 litre bottles of distilled water for a starter, my reasoning was for five bucks I couldn't get a better bottle myself. But I am wondering on the size? Is five litres to much, I know I could probably put two or three litres in it?

So what is the ideal size for a starter?

All depends whether you are doing --- A lager or an ale?
Should have enough room for either if you are doing the usual 23 litre batch.

TP :beer:

 

[kook]

All depends whether you are doing --- A lager or an ale?
Should have enough room for either if you are doing the usual 23 litre batch.

TP :beer:

And starting gravity, and cell count.

 

[Batz]

All depends whether you are doing --- A lager or an ale?
Should have enough room for either if you are doing the usual 23 litre batch.

TP :beer:

What he said

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Adam pointed you in the right direction - MrMalty has the calculator and also some really nice articles about yeast and yeast starters. Read the articles and use the calculator and you wont go wrong.

TB

 

[antains]

If I may lead this thread into a bit more about starters, rather than starting a new thread.

I'm yet to make a starter and I'm trying to get my head around it. Buttersd got me thinking about it and now this thread and AdamT's link to Mr Malty's page is really helping me understand a little bit more.

Mr Malty mentions yeast nutrients and I've had a look on this forum for some information about this and found a bit. Now, I'm piecing things together.

Really, I just want to confirm where all this is leading me: I can provide yeast nutrients in a starter by boiling a sachet of yeast and feeding that to the starter yeast.

P.S. Is there a really straight forward description of making a starter? We've got our daughter home from the nursery and I'm in that sleep-deprived fog, so Mr Malty's getting too detailed for me.

Cheers,
Ant.

 

[seemax]

Assuming you're going to use a smack pack?

Ideally you would do a graduated starter, starting at perhaps 500mL, then 1L then 2L, but for ales I use a 1.25L coke bottle. Clean and sanitise bottle, scissors and smack pack where you will pour from.

Boil 100g LME with 1.2L water for 15mins, some will evaporate. Should be about 1040SG. Pour into coke bottle, add yeast, cover with alum foil. Swirl around several times a day, keep at 20-24C. Pitch once krausen is at peak or in 2-3 days. You can pour in the whole lot or decant most of the wort. Either way there should be a decent slurry of yeast.

 

[raven19]

Lots of useful info on this site, just a few threads here I found that will be of interest:

http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...;showarticle=20

http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...showtopic=14385

Cheers.

 

[antains]

Assuming you're going to use a smack pack?
...

Well, to be a noob, can I use the regular sachets?
My understanding is the smack packs have the nutrients in them, so boiling up extra yeast as food wouldn't be necessary. Is that right?

Lots of useful info on this site, just a few threads here I found that will be of interest:

http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...;showarticle=20

http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...showtopic=14385

Cheers.

Thanks, raven. I was using terms like "yeast nutrients" and "yeast starter" to search. Not optimal phrases by the looks of it. I was sure the information had to be here. Cheers.

 

[buttersd70]

Well, to be a noob, can I use the regular sachets?
My understanding is the smack packs have the nutrients in them, so boiling up extra yeast as food wouldn't be necessary. Is that right?

smack packs have a nutrient pouch in them, as you've said. I consider it enough, and don't add anything else to the starter. Dry yeast on the other hand....there is debate as to the need to do starters at all (for ales of a 'normal' strength and size, at least). But if you were to do a starter, the dried yeast itself has all the nutrients it needs, as part of the manufacturing process. Ross did a post some time back about the nutrients available to the dried yeast.

 

[Steve]

Boil 100g LME with 1.2L water for 15mins, some will evaporate. Should be about 1040SG. Pour into coke bottle, add yeast, cover with alum foil.

...and obviously you will let the wort cool to room temp before adding yeast!

Cheers
Steve

 

[Bribie G]

I've found an excellent starter bottle to be a heavy glass 1.5L V8 vegetable juice bottle. Provided you step the temperature up and don't pour boiling water in while cold you can thoroughly scald it during the sanitisation process, which would destroy a coke bottle.

Initially I tasted the contents then poured them down the sink but it was worth it to get the bottle

 

[Steve]

I've found an excellent starter bottle to be a heavy glass 1.5L V8 vegetable juice bottle. Provided you step the temperature up and don't pour boiling water in while cold you can thoroughly scald it during the sanitisation process, which would destroy a coke bottle.

Initially I tasted the contents then poured them down the sink but it was worth it to get the bottle

Exactly what I used recently on my Brown Belgian. It was the only bottle I could find at the time. We drink lots of V8 Juice in our house.
Cheers
Steve

 

[antains]

So I bought one of those 5 litre bottles of distilled water for a starter....

Sorry, Mick for hijacking.

...Dry yeast on the other hand....there is debate as to the need to do starters at all...

Buttersd,
I'm not sure if you'll recall, given your prolific support on this forum, but the idea of doing a starter came from you, because I asked about preparing yeast across two or three 12 litre jerries for experimental brews with different ingredients. I just haven't got my head around it, yet.
As an aside, I did set up an experiment, but pitched entire sachets per 10 litres. Ooh, baby, did I learn some stuff!

Anyway, thank you to all. You've all pointed me in the right direction. Cheers.

Ant. :icon_cheers:

 

[buttersd70]

Oh, yeah, thats right.....I'd forgotten. It was as much to make it easier to divide equally, and to increase cell count to enough for 30L than anything else.

As far as needing to do a starter (for dry yeast) under more 'normal' circumstances (ie 20ish L batch of ale ~1050ish)....some people will argue one way or the other. Some (reliable) sources say to do a starter, other (just as reliable) sources say not to ....personally, my arse hurts from sitting on the fence. :lol: