Beer Forum

I'm brewing tomorrow so I am in the process of making a starter. According to Mr. Malty's Pitching Rate Calculator I need a 4 liter starter.

Two days ago I made 2 liters of 1.040 wort and pitched 1 vile of WLP001.

Yesterday (after about 22 hours of fermenting) I put the starter in the fridge to drop the yeast out of suspension and this morning I decanted the excess liquid and set the yeast out to ramp up to room temp.

Currently I am prepping a 4 liter batch of wort. I am boiling it for 15 min (with yeast nutrient) and plan to cool it to room temp, at which time I'll pitch the yeast from my 2 liter starter.

This will give me about 16 hours before I need to pitch it in my American Amber.

Am I on the right track? Have I done anything wrong or are there any additional steps I need to consider?

Thanks in advance army!

Curt

Looks good to me. What are you brewing?

Thanks Sheen; I am brewing an American Amber . . . 1052 OG.

I did an Amber once...

So that's how you do a starter. I did my first one for the Maibock I did yesterday. I made it Friday night and really didn't know what I was doing. I ended up pitching the whole glorious mess into my beer. It seems to be fermenting vi-gar-ously so that's good I guess.

Sorry to hijack your thread Azimuth, but I wanted to thank you for the education.

your process sounds spot on, but for a 1.052 OG a 4 liter starter is overkill. When I run that gravity on Mr Malty for a simple starter it's 1.8L if you don't do anything but stare at it, if you shake it from time to time you can get it down to almost a simple 1 liter starter. Might want to check that again, unless you really want to drop a ton of yeasties on that Amber... either way, cheers!

It might be a big batch size...

Yeah, I assumed it was for a 10 gallon batch.