First yeast starter for tomorrow

[New_to_Brew]

Hi all,

This has most likely been covered previously on the forum so apologies but I searched for a bit and couldn't find a question similar. I'm a newbie so be gentle with me

I bottled my first beer on the 18th a few weeks back and also harvested/cleaned some yeast from the stuff at the bottom of my fermenting bucket following a claw hammer video on YouTube, hopefully it's worked. This has been sat in the fridge since in a diluted mix of the left over beer and distilled water. The colour of this has gone a little darker, first thing will this be ok? Is it ok to leave that long? Looks like yeast has settled on the bottom.

All the videos I've watched are using dme, presuming this is just basically wort am I ok to make up a small batch of wort now following the usual all grain way of making it ie mash, boil, cool and pitch the harvested yeast? I'm dying to get another brew done tomorrow and figured if I can make wort today quick and throw it in ready for tomorrow evening. I'm more of a wing it kind of guy so I was just going to make up 2litres of starter for a 18 litre batch of neipa. Does this sound about right? I think the yeast was mangrove jack hop head yeast dried for extra info,

Cheers,
Tom

 

[Session]

Hi Tom,
Sorry this reply isn’t in time for your planned brew. You can absolutely use ‘standard’ wort instead of a solution of DME. The reason I like to use DME is because it is very easy to calculate the correct amount to add in order to get an OG of 1.037 (100g/L).

Are you using a calculator to help with your yeast starter? I would strongly recommend it as it will help to ensure you are using the correct gravity and volume of wort to build your starter to the correct volume. I like this one:

http://yeastcalculator.com/

 

[Slid]

If you have a decent amount of yeast, I would just pitch it.
I re-use yeast routinely with no issues and it does not usually need a starter.

 

[New_to_Brew]

Hmm I might just buy some dme to make life a little easier, it's not much yeast at the bottom of a very small pickle jar so I'm guessing I would need a starter for a 18litre batch?

 

[Session]

Hmm I might just buy some dme to make life a little easier, it's not much yeast at the bottom of a very small pickle jar so I'm guessing I would need a starter for a 18litre batch?

Like a lot of things in brewing, it depends!

The quantity of yeast you use depends on both how viable (ie how fresh and healthy) your yeast are, as well as the volume and original gravity of your wort. A calculator like the one I linked makes this very straightforward to calculate, but as @Slid mentions above, depending on the freshness of the yeast you have stored you may not need one. The liquid yeast vials from white yeast contain around 45ml of liquid yeast slurry with 1.8-2.8 billion cells/ml at packaging, so if you have this sort of volume and it is in reasonable condition it will probably do just fine. Even if you are slightly under-pitching it may not be a bad thing depending on style (I’m looking at you delicious bananary hefeweizen!).

What volume of yeast do you have to play with?

 

[New_to_Brew]

Like a lot of things in brewing, it depends!

The quantity of yeast you use depends on both how viable (ie how fresh and healthy) your yeast are, as well as the volume and starting gravity of your wort. A calculator like the one I linked makes this very straightforward to calculate, but as @Slid mentions above, depending on the freshness of the yeast you have stored you may not need one. The liquid yeast vials from white yeast contain around 45ml of liquid yeast slurry with 1.8-2.8 billion cells/ml at packaging, so if you have this sort of volume and it is in reasonable condition it will probably do just fine. Even if you are slightly under-pitching it may not be a bad thing depending on style (I’m looking at you delicious bananary hefeweizen!).

What volume of yeast do you have to play with?

Hmmm I see, well I've attached two photos of what I harvested, not much at all I don't think. That's a two pence piece next to it for comparison, it was harvested a couple of weeks ago and kept in the fridge

 

[Session]

Hmmm I see, well I've attached two photos of what I harvested, not much at all I don't think. That's a two pence piece next to it for comparison, it was harvested a couple of weeks ago and kept in the fridge

Good photos! I’d make a starter from that if it was me, only because the volume looks smaller than I would like for a typical 20L batch.

 

[Slid]

Hmmm I see, well I've attached two photos of what I harvested, not much at all I don't think. That's a two pence piece next to it for comparison, it was harvested a couple of weeks ago and kept in the fridge

Agree with Session on making a starter, having seen the photo's. 100g of DME and 500ml water in a 2L PET bottle should do the job by the weekend!

 

[New_to_Brew]

Ok starter it is! Got my light dme today too and I've almost drank my first batch of beer so time to get brewing!

 

[foxbat]

Agree with Session on making a starter, having seen the photo's. 100g of DME and 500ml water in a 2L PET bottle should do the job by the weekend!

Bit of a typo there I think. 100g in 500ml will be a 1.074 starter which is way too high. 100g in 1 litre will yield the usual 1.037 wort.

 

[New_to_Brew]

Made a starter with 1L and 100g of dme, looks good I think, smells good too

First photo from yesterday and second from today, ready for a brew in a few hours

 

[Slid]

Yes, indeed, Foxbat is right! 100g in one litre