Starter questions about my next batch... a Weissbier

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Well, seeing as my new conical is lonely, I decided I need to brew a new batch to break it in, even though I was originally going to wait until next month to brew again.

That said...

My LHBS has 2 vials of WLP380 in stock, and enough Alexander's wheat LME to allow me to make an 8 gallon batch.

According to Jamil's site, I need 401 billion yeast cells ideally if I have 8 gallons of 1.053 OG wort. This would imply I would ideally need 4 vials or else a starter. I decided I want to make a starter since I don't have the 4 vials.

What is the best strategy here for making a starter?

First off, I don't think they have any wheat DME. Would it be alright to use something like Munton's Extra Light DME (non-wheat) for the starter, or would it be best to use some of the wheat LME to make the starter? I would think using the wheat LME would work best (using 25% more than DME as per John Palmer's book), but I wanted some input here.

I am thinking of snagging a 2 liter flask and heated stirplate from work and making my starter with that setup.

I'll put 6.4 ounces of DME (or 8 ounces of LME) into the 2 liter flask, then boil for 15 minutes. After the hotplate and flask cool down to around pitching temperature, I'll pitch the 2 tubes in. I will oxygenate the wort very briefly with B3's oxygenation setup, as well as use the stirplate to facilitate yeast growth.

Does this sound like a good plan? If not, let me know. I know Jamil's site says that using a stirplate by itself will lead to upwards of three times more yeast, so is it possible I could end up overpitching by a couple hundred billion cells in that case? Or does this just mean I'm gay?

Maybe I should relax and have a homebrew, hehe. Oh yeah, that's right...I don't have any homebrew to drink.

Well, thanks to anybody who read through this. Let me know your thoughts, and feel free to also tell me you hate me for having a heated stirplate and large borosilicate flasks at my disposal.


- joe

[Ozbrewer]

it realy depends on what you want the Weissbier to finish like, ..I like to have some funky flavors in mine so i underpitch the yeast to give it a bit of a stress attach and it throws of some extra flavors

[Bugeater]

Using the regular DME with the rest of your strategy look fine to me.

Wayne
Bugeater Brewing Company

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Thanks for the responses guys...and sorry for my super-lagged reply.

I ended up using a half pound of wheat LME for the starter and the rest for the actual beer itself, since after looking at the potential for my LME being 1.037 and crunching some numbers, I saw I needed 11.5 pounds of LME for a 1.053 wort, then the half pound of LME left over would give me a 1.035 starter.

If the math hadn't worked out, I probably would have used some non-wheat DME for the starter.

The starter was looking pretty good by the time I was ready to pitch, and the everything in the process went fairly well, so I'm thinking the flavors will be pretty clean. I kept the fermentation at 66 Fahrenheit, and I'll just keep the beer in the fermenter until January 8th or so (even though the fermentation is already "done"), then I'll rack and force carb it and enjoy.

Thanks for the tips even though I kind of just ended up doing whatever I felt was right at the time.


- joe