making a yeast starter
To prep for my upcoming brew day on saturday (check back monday for results) I decided to make a yeast starter.
- to be honest, I had never made a yeast starter before, and had relied on wyeast smack packs as a sort of “mini-starter” for my batches.
- however, I have been running into some bad luck with recent smack packs that didn’t fully inflate, and one which didn’t take off at all. this made for a headache on brew day.
- in addition, as long as I have been brewing, starters have been getting pumped to me as a good idea for a fast and vigorous fermentation.
- I am also interested in reconstituting bottle yeast in the future, and there’s no way I can do this without a starter, so I had to start sometime.
- the kicker was that my shipped brew ingredients had been sitting out in the hot sun all day yesterday, and despite being wrapped with a cold pack, my smack pack was already swollen when I got to it. I could either let the swollen smack pack sit in the fridge for a couple days and potentially run out of nutrients or make a starter.
I recently purchased a few items for the yeast starter process.
- a 1000 mL erlenmeyer flask – realistically, you can use any type of container, but you can toss this flask right on the stove top and dump it into an ice bath without any problems.
- some yeast nutrient – I got this mostly for reconstituting yeast so they would have a proper diet. my smack pack already had nutrient in it, so I didn’t add any to this batch.
- you will also definitely want some foam reducer, dry or liquid malt extract, and some aluminum foil. I had all of this lying around from previous batches.
- however, you can realistically make a starter with just water and some leftover DME or LME and any container. the stuff above just eliminates steps from the process and/or makes the process easier.
for those interested, here’s a quick breakdown of the process I followed, based on various online tutorials:
- I added DME and water to the flask in a ratio of 2 oz. DME/400mL water. note here – if using a flask, add the DME first. I waited until the water was boiling to add the DME – big mistake. that stuff is like crazy glue once it gets warm and went everywhere but through the neck of the flask.
- ADD FOAM REDUCER to your flask before the boil, or you will get a gnarly boil over, or if using a flask, a wort eruption. In my opinion, this is the most important note of the whole process. My 600 mL starter became a 400 mL starter in about a second before I realized I forgot to add the foam reducer.
- I whipped up a quick batch of sanitizer while I was waiting for the boil to complete. you can never be too anal/safe!
- after boiling for a little over 10 minutes, I placed the flask in an ice bath, and cooled it to about 70F.
- I then shook my smack pack and added the yeast. I am using wyeast 2450PC – Denny’s Favorite 50. Denny Conn is one of my favorite brew forum contributors, and I have used his recipes and followed his advice multiple times. why not give his yeast a shot?
- after adding the yeast, I topped the flask off with some sanitized foil and shook it up. some people use stir plates or oxygenate their starter, and some use an airlock or foam stopper. I was going to use an airlock, but the stopper I got was too small for the flask. william’s brewing recommends a #7 stopper for their 1000 mL flask, but you need more like a #9.5 from what I read.
- every once in a while (5-6 hrs or so) you will want to swirl the starter around to keep the yeast working.
- another note – I have heard of people making multiple batches of wort like this and canning them using a pressure cooker. They then have sterile wort ready every time they want to make a starter! I might have to look into that.
Tags: denny, erlenmeyer flask, foam reducer, nutrient, reconstituting bottle yeast, smack pack, williams, wyeast 2450PC, yeast starter
September 4th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
Hey, you might not want to add your de-foaming agent to your yeast starter. It contains sodium metabisulphite. The same stuff added to wine in order to kill the yeast.
September 5th, 2009 at 12:58 am
whoa, you’re right about the sodium metabisulfite in the foam control. it seems kinda weird that they would put that in a product meant to be used primarily during fermentation. hopefully the amount is negligible since it’s used as a preservative, but I’ll contact the supplier when I get a chance to see what’s up. I have had friends use it successfully in starters, however, so I’m crossing my fingers, but I may reconsider using it in the future or look for an alternative. thanks for the advice! comments moved from “pyramid ale house at OAK” to here.
September 14th, 2009 at 9:56 am
[…] had saved the yeast cake from a biere de noel he had made about a week ago, and had made a starter with it the day before. the starter was over 1000 mL and was showing heavy activity by the time I […]
October 20th, 2009 at 9:58 am
[…] my lesson from my last starter preparation, I added a little less than 4oz of DME and a pinch of yeast nutrient before adding any water to my […]