Starter procedure help

[Madtown Brew]

Hi all.

Great forum here, seems like there are a lot of knowledgable members (gotta love the internets, a forum for everything).

Anyways, I was going to brew my first PM tonight (an attempt at something resembling a New Glarus "Fat Squirrel"), but things fell through and I didn't have the time. So, since I won't be able to brew until Sunday night at the earliest, I figured this would be a good time to try making a starter.

I have access to an autoclave, some 1200 ml fleakers, and some larger erlenmeyer flasks (2L maybe?) . I also have about 1.5 lbs. of pale LME leftover from a previous brew.

What would be the procedure for making a starter with this equipment? Can I just make up some 1.040 wort, autoclave it in the fleaker or flask w/ al. foil on it, and then pitch when cool? What pressure should I run the autoclave to and for how long? What's the easiest way to calculate how much LME to use for the volume? At what temp. do I let the yeast grow at? Does the flask need a stopper and airlock, or is al. foil good enough? How long until it needs a wort change? Help me obiwan kenobi you're my only hope. yadda yadda yadda


Backgorund (for those who care): I'm fairly new to brewing. Five extract batches under my belt and all but the first were great. Starting to crave more variety and control than just LME offers. No special equipment yet, but I did manage to make my own lauter tun outta 5 gal. buckets as shown in TCJOHB. I also just planted my first hops rhizomes about 2 wks ago (I know it's late, but I got an empty greenhouse to use and I'm a botany student so I'm pretty confident. Don't expect much this yr. though ).

Wow, that was a bit of brain diarrhea. Sorry for the length. Guess you can tell I've been lurking a bit and the questions have been bulding up .
Any help is appreciated, would like to get this going tomorrow at work some time as I'm the only one there on weekends usually.

 

[bradsul]

For making starters there is a great article on the wiki to get you going. Sorry I can't help you with all that autoclave stuff, I just use my stove and then leave them on my kitchen counter.

 

[Thalon]

Yikes! The autoclave is beyond normal homebrewing methods. Come to think about it, I'm not entirely sure if there's another reason to boil the starter wort besides sterilizing it, in which case you could simply use the autoclave.

You are correct, just make up some 1.040 wort, somehow ensure it's free of unwanted organisms, then pitch the yeast. As far as pitching temp, aim for ~75-80 degrees F to give it a small jump on fermentation (higher temp = faster fermentation but more off-flavors over time), then let it cool naturally down to your target fermentation temp. Ideally you would ferment the starter at the same temp as you will ferment the full batch of beer, so that the yeast gets used to an environment as close as possible to its final home. This produces as short a lag time as possible when pitching it into the full batch.

Which yeast strain are you using? Here's a couple links to the most common yeast manufacturers' descriptions of their different yeast products, complete with ideal fermentation temperatures for each strain:

http://www.wyeastlab.com/beprlist.htm
http://whitelabs.com/beer/homebrew_strains.html

My first starter was also done within one weekend, but ideally you would start it on like a Tuesday or Wednesday, and add some 1.040 wort every day to keep it in the reproduction stage and really build up some volume.

 

[Madtown Brew]

Thanks for the prompt replies.

I had figured that I could probably just dissolve the required amt. of LME and then autoclave it with a tin foil cover, and that would sterilize the container and the wort. In addition, after reading the wiki link, I realized I also have a stir plate that I can use. Turns out the erlenmeyer flasks are about 2.8 L, so I'm thinking that volume in conjunction with the stirring should make for a pretty decent starter by tomorrow night. Certainly better than just the smack pak.

I think I'll get started on this.
thanks again

For those interested, here is the original recipe I was working off of. Had to modify it for a PM and 5 gal batch though. If anyone has any comments or thoughts on it, speak up.

**************
(OP: mashweasel) posted on another HB forum

I brewed this for my wife. Its actually quite close. Got most of the info on the beer back in the day when they would actually have a conversation with you about ingredients at the brewery. Everything they use is from WI. I prefer the German stuff b/c its of higher quality. This beer is quite close however not exact. The funny thing is I put them side-by-side and she liked this one better. "You should send them this recipe and tell them to change theirs. This is much better." As I said, its rather close. I think the biggest problem is that is has to much flavor.

Fat Squirrel Clone
10 gal
12 lb. Pilsner
2 lb. Munich
2 lb. CaraVienne
1.5 lb. Flaked barley
2 lb. Flaked oats
.5 lb. Chocolate Malt

1oz Mag 14.4% FWH
2oz Saaz 3.4% 10min

Mash 153F x 60min

Yeast 2565 Kolsch
**************

I pretty much just cut the grain bill by 3/4. Then used a recipe generator to figure out how much pale LME I'd need to get a an OG around 1.055-1.060. Does that sound appropriate? The OP never gave any gravity specs, or any other info than above.

edit: Just thought of another question: Do I need to worry about much kraeusen developing in the starter? That would be messy with just a tin foil cover.

 

[Thalon]

By the way, don't boil up all 1.5lbs of DME for just one starter. It only needs a little bit, especially since it only has 24 hours to eat it all. (http://howtobrew.com/section1/chapter6-5.html) The 2.8L flask is much bigger than you'll need, but it will definitely work. My flask is 1L and I only had it about half full for my 24-hour starter. It took off like a champ too!

I did boil my 1lb of DME all at once, but I sanitized some beer bottles very very well, portioned the boiled wort into 1 cup quantities, capped right away and stuck em in my garage fridge. That way I do the boil once and make multiple starters at any time.

A more experienced AG homebrewer will have to help out with the recipe question. I've only ever used recipe kits.

 

[bradsul]

I plunked your recipe into promash and scaled it back to 19L (5 gallons), then swapped the pilsner malt for LME and here is the recipe I got back. Sorry for the metric.

Anticipated OG: 1.057
Anticipated SRM: 17.3
Anticipated IBU: 31.0
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75 %

2.04 kg. Generic LME - Light
0.57 kg. CaraVienna
0.57 kg. Flaked Oats
0.57 kg. Munich Malt
0.43 kg. Flaked Barley
0.14 kg. Chocolate Malt

15 g. Magnum First WH
29 g. Czech Saaz 10 min.

Hope that helps!

 

[Madtown Brew]

I've made the starter. Used about 0.6 lbs. LME (just eyed it) in 2 qts water. It's cooling right now. Will pitch when below 80F. Gravity is 1.043.

@bradsul: Thanks for converting the recipe, but why remove the pils grain? I had wanted to try my hand at mashing, so I was going to use 3 lbs. of the pils (american pils is all my LHBS had), and cut back on the LME a bit. Specifically:


3 lb. Am. Pilsner
8 oz. German dark Munich
8 oz. Belgian CaraVienne
4 oz. American chocolate
6 oz. Flaked barley
8 oz. Flaked oats

mash @ 153F as per original recipe

approx. 4 lb. light LME
(Since I have no idea what my effeciency will be, I will take a gravity reading of the sparge runoff and adjust LME accordingly to acheive desired OG.

sparge volume: 3 gal
Boil volume: 3-3.5 gal
fiinal volume 5 gal
"The Beer Recipator 2.2" gives OG of 1.056 w/ 70% eff.

Looking at your recipe conversion, I see a lot more specialty grains wieght than I have just by taking 1/4 the total grain bill. Any suggestions? Keep in mind this is my first attempt at mashing. Mashing will be done in my brewpot (not ideal, but it's all I got right now and this is my first try).

Also, should I do a protein rest? if so, at what temp?

 

[bradsul]

Ah my bad, I didn't realize you wanted a PM. That recipe is for double the standard batch size. Promash adjusted the weights for 1/2 the batch size, so it is reasonable to assume it would have higher grain weights than taking 1/4 of the grain.

I would skip the protein rest if this is your first PM, but if you really want to do it I would shoot for 122F or thereabouts.

According to promash in a 19L (5G) batch size, 453G (1lbs) of LME will give you .007 gravity points. So you can use that to adjust your recipe after you mash to hit your target. That is for generic LME so your particular brand may differ but that should get you pretty close.