yeast starter

[christhebrewer]

What would be the difference between making a starter with DME and making it with glucose?

[irish_goat]

Yeast need nutrients to reproduce, glucose doesn't contain them but malt does.

Also yeast growing up in a glucose rich environment may not be capable of properly digesting maltose. They will only produce enzymes for digesting simple sugars so when you pitch into your wort the yeast will be impaired and can give off flavours.

Got this on another website.

As an analogy, consider how unhealthy you and your decendents would be if
you were asked to live (and reproduce!) on a diet of nothing but
soda pop.

[Hop Bomb]

Once this bag of DME is gone Im gona stick a mash on especially for starter wort. Gona can it all & sterilize in the pressure cooker. DME is so expensive & the GB grain is so cheap. 1kg DME is 7.95e & 1KG of GB malt was 1.00e. Crazy difference.

[christhebrewer]

I had some wort but it went mouldy! I made a glucose soultion and started a yeast yesterday but there aint much happening. Oh well, I thought it was worth a try! Down the drain with it.
I've saved wort for bottling and starters before but keeping it for much more than a week or so seems to be a problem.
Maybe boiling it down to a rich syrup would help it keep?

[RichC]

worth a read on this stuff and other related yeast info
http://www.maltosefalcons.com/tech/yeast-propagation-and-maintenance-principles-and-practices

[Shane Phelan]

I sometimes make all grain starters, I just do a 2L BIAB and put it in the oven for the mash. When I'm doing a lot of starters when stepping it up from a slant all the way up to 2L I use the LME from the health food shops if I don't have DME.

[irish_goat]

I had some wort but it went mouldy! I made a glucose soultion and started a yeast yesterday but there aint much happening. Oh well, I thought it was worth a try! Down the drain with it.
I've saved wort for bottling and starters before but keeping it for much more than a week or so seems to be a problem.
Maybe boiling it down to a rich syrup would help it keep?

It should keep fine if you sterlise it, put it in sterile jam jars and keep it in the fridge. Essentially you're talking about making your own LME so there's no reason why it can't work.

[christhebrewer]

I might just try a wee BIAB. Good idea!

[Shane Phelan]

If you have a pressure cooker, this guy has a pretty good video on sterilising wort.

[Eoin]

Freeze any wort you wish to make up in advance.

It's standard in Germany to prime beers with held back wort, they make it, put the main ferment on and then freeze the percentage necessary to get the correct carbonation and add it afterwards. I primed like that once, no difference to making a starter really.

[Ciderhead]

nice one

[christhebrewer]

Hmmm.....freeze..........ah!

[imark]

Would you boil the frozen wort again before adding it? What do you freeze it in? plastic bottles?

[Eoin]

Would you boil the frozen wort again before adding it? What do you freeze it in? plastic bottles?

I'd freeze it in anything, I suppose a boil would do no harm. When I did it I didn't use a frozen wort, but a mini mash I did extra.

[christhebrewer]

Just while we're thinking about starters....... Why do we stir our starters? I have assumed it is to give the yeast plenty of oxygen to get max population increase. If this is so, can I just give it a good dose from my shiny new oxygen set up and forget about the stir plate? This would suit me for making bigger starters cos the demijon won't work on the stir plate.