Yeast starte-bumed/ruined?

Are you making a lager or an ale? Are you using liquid yeast? Does the yeast package itself have directions for making a starter?

 

Are you making 5 gallons or more? What will be the target Original Gravity? If you are making 5 gallons, the target Specific Gravity is less than about 1.080, and the yeast package is relatively new (less than 2 or 3 months), you should be fine with 2.75 cups, but if you only ended up with about 300 ml, you must have measured wrong (2.75 cups = 650 ml). You also added 1/2 cup of malt, and there is no way you could have boiled off that much in 15 minutes. You should have ended up with about 600-700 ml after the boil. You can always add more boiled and cooled water to get it up to the 700 ml level.

 

I would add some more, especially since you are already at 1.070 in terms of target S.G., and 300 ml is quite low in terms of volume.

 

How long has it already been on the stir plate? If it's only been a few hours, I would add the 400 ml of boiled and cooled water. If it's already been half a day or so, just let it go until it's finished, put it in the fridge until the yeast has settled (a day or so), decant the wort from above the sediment, add new boiled and cooled wort, and put it on the stirplate again.

 

Great. Just boil enough water for 10-15 minutes so that you will have about 300-400 ml left, cool the pot in a sink of cool water until it reaches room temperature, and add it to the flask. It shoudn't take too long (10-15 minutes to boil the water and maybe 10 minutes to cool). You don't need to add more DME to the water you're boiling.

 

It probably would have turned out OK anyway, but it's easy to fix at this early stage of the process, and ensure a vigorous fermentation. I often undershot the amount needed for a starter when I first did them, and got into the habit of boiling and cooling a little extra water in a separate pot, just in case I needed a little more water later. The balance of water to malt ensures proper yeast growth and vitality.

 

Great! Now there should be no more worries about the yeast

 

For future reference you can you a yeast pitch calculator to figure out what volume of starter to make. I would link the Mr Malty calculator here but the Mr Malty web pages do not seem to be working for me right now.

Here is an excellent article on yeast starters.

Your starter OG should be around 1.040 going forward.

Sounds like your current starter is fine.

 

This is the Yeast and DME Calculator I always use. It's very easy to use and quite complete:

http://www.yeastcalculator.com/

 

Great article!

 

I'm also making my first starter and I have it cold crashing in the fridge and plan on pitching it tomorrow. When are you supposed to decant the beer off the yeast? Are you supposed to do it right out of the fridge when the starter is still at it's coldest, or are you supposed to let it come to room temp and then decant right before you pitch? When I do decant should I spray the lip of the flask with star san or is that unnecessary? Thanks for any tips ,and sorry for the slight threadjack, but I considered this kind of on the same topic so I thought I would post it here.

 

The best time to decant the beer off the yeast is when it's relatively clear. Cold, right out of the fridge is best, IMO. If you let it warm up, there's a chance that some of it might go back into suspension again. Whether or not it is necessary to spray the lip of the flask is a question that I don't think has been addressed, but IMO it doesn't hurt to do so. I usually do. I keep a spray bottle of StarSan handy for just such purposes, and it only takes a couple of seconds to do it.

 

I was thinking when it's cold is best but I wanted to be sure. If I do that though that's why I asked about the star san, after I decant the beer, I'll need to hit the lip of the flask with some star san when I actually do pitch cause it'll have been sitting out for like 7-8 hours on my counter gathering who knows what on the edge. Thanks for the advice