i haven't done too many of these. It's a Baltic porter fwiw so here goes.... 1070 OG - wyeast cal lager 2112 Stir plate 2 liter flask I've got the dme and even some yeast nutrient The dude at the HBS told me a pound of dme and that seems like a lot. Is that right? How much water do I need? Advice? Thanks
I would not trust the dude. First, you are making a high gravity ale with a lager yeast. This is not my area, but my understanding is if you ferment warm you can get away with ale pitch rates (basically 0.75 million cells/ml of wort/degree Plato). If in fact you need a lager pitch rate you will probably want to double this. Will defer to Baltic-Porter-brewers for guidance here. But don't get hung up in the math, there are several friendly online calculators that make it easy. Here's a good one: http://yeastcalculator.com/ Once you play with the calculator you'll see your variables are ale vs. larger (or hybrid?), OG, quantity, stir-plate, and age of your yeast. So only if the dude has an understanding of this can his advice be trusted. Oh yeah, you really don't want to fill that flask more than about 1.5L. If you need lager pitch rates or the yeast is old it may require multiple steps. Once the calculator walks you through the steps, the sidebar will tell you the amount of DME to add. Good luck.
The ratio is 10 grams DME to 1 gram of water will yield an 1.040 starter. So for 1.5 liters in that 2 liter flask you would use 150 grams of DME or about 1/3 pound. As already mentioned, use a yeast calculator to figure out how many steps for a starter.
Just to be clear, when @PortLargo said that, he probably meant to say don't trust him about anything brewing related, not just yeast starters
It got it's own paragraph. Hehe OP: 10 grams DME to 100 grams of distilled or RO water. for 1.040ish wort. Any water that's decholrinated will be ok.
It always amazes me when people give horrible advice at homebrew stores.. My LHBS was out of white wheat once, so I was looking for another good substitute base malt. He suggested carawheat, which would've been a horrible substitute and probably would've rendered my beer undrinkable. Anyways, here is another good calculator that I use a lot: http://www.brewersfriend.com/yeast-pitch-rate-and-starter-calculator/
