my new stir plate with pics!

i must have heard you wrong then jeff, cause i thought you said 1.5 cup DME with 2 cups water. i would guess that the yeast is ready to go then, i will spin it, leave it to room temp, and pitch as is. as you say i may have already over fed the yeast! i will learn how to do this some day!

I use 1 cup/liter of wort for my starters.

4 cups for 4liters.

When i make my starters i only use 1/2 cup of DME to get in the range of 1.040 with two cups water....you gotta have strong wort for the yeast there with 1.5 cups DME ....Jeff

competition is a great way to get feedback. You will get scored on a 50 point scale from appearance to mouth feel to flavor. It's a good test of your product and skills, no matter how the judging turns out. Just ship it in advance to save you some costs. If you check out the BYO magazine, they list all the upcoming events around the nation. Not too many close to here, but you can ship it do different places, as I plan on doing. It's fun, and the excitement of the possibility of winning is pretty cool, not to mention if you actually do win.

yeah they are just guidlines, but i do think i would like to turn good brews into some of these competitions, because i think i can get an unbiased opinion on the beer. some folks soften the hit a bit when you are standing in front of them. i guess in saying that i don't know how particular they get when judging, as i have not gotten there yet.

and thank you very much for your imput, i really do appreciate it!

That's correct. I use my stir plate for 48 hours with my 4L starter and most activity is finished by then. At that size though, I usually like to decant before adding my yeast. An extra gallon of starter could make a difference, but 2 cups isn't going to. And don't worry about your specific gravity too much. Those style guidelines are just that.... guidelines.

i am at 1.062 of (estimated) only .002 out of style, but i think i can live with that!

i was reading that wyeast starters with a spinner will be done in only 12-18 hours that says to me i just need to start spinning the night before, and it will be prim for pitching!

You could do that, but you really don't need to pitch that much yeast for a 5 gallon batch, unless you are getting in the 1.065 or over range. I would just leave it as is, decant it on the morning of the brew day, and leave enough liquid in the flask so that you can swirl and get the yeast off the bottom of the flask, and then pitch that.

what if i pulled of the liquid tonight, biled another 2 cups water and 1-1/2 DME what do you think? that would not be a bad idea would it? esspecially since the cake is now on the bottom, i could get most of the water out no problem. then i will spin sat, until i brew on sunday afternoon.

Yes, that is where the yeast have flocculated. if you like you can decant most of the liquid off the cake, then leave some and swirl it to get the yeast back in suspension, then pitch. Otherwise, since the amount is only 2 cups, you could actually swirl and pitch the entire starter if you like. that amount is not going to affect your finished product all that much, but would also depend on the type of beer you are making.

it is the smaller flask, i put in 2 cups of water brought it to a boil, added 1-1/2 DME, for 10-12 min, then put it in an ice bath brought the temp down to 68, pitched the yeast, and started spinning.

just to be clear i want to pitch the cake right? that is my kick ass healthy yeast right?

I don't think your yeast cake grew much more during the second 24 hours because there was little if any sugars left in the wort. It looked to me like you were using a 1000ml starter. If you want more yeast you might consider going to a 2000 ml flask to get you the extra wort space.

You didn't need to crash cool it necessarily. If you are going to brew in a couple of days, leaving it on the counter at the 70 degrees would have been fine. Then you could have decanted off the liquid and dumped your yeast cake. Just remember when pitching your yeast, they can be susceptible to wide temperature changes. Warm up your yeast starter before pitching it directly into your new wort.

Overall though, if your amber is in the 1.50-1.060 range the amount of yeast you have will be sufficient. One thing I have done with starter on brew day is take the starter out of the fridge in the morning. Then if you are taking a preboil reading your wort, take it just as it starts to boil. That way it should have killed anything undesirable in the wort. Capture that reading in a sterile container. Cool it to 60-70F so you can get an accurate reading, and use the spare liquid to pitch into the starter yeast. This fresh sugar will get your yeast off to a nice start before pitching into fermenter. I don't do this often, but is has worked quite nicely in the past when my starter wort has been in the fridge for a week or more.

ok i need some input from you guys. i looked at the yeast cake after 24 hours i would say it was very close to a half inch thick. after 48 hours it may have been a bit thicker but not like double or anything. is the presents of the cake mean i an good, or do you thoing i should spin longer? the MR brew yeast calcutator says i need a little more than double what a pack offers, around 223 billion. is there anyway to know? or is it kind of a guessing game. i would consider pulling the liquid off the top, and adding more malt to feed the yeast. i crashed the starter as i started it sooner than i needed to according to the few places i looked at. but i am brewing sunday, so saturady i will spin again for another 24 hours, this should mean a well oxigenated yeast population to add to the wort. just wondering if there is any way to know. closest thing i have got the the answers is with a spinning starter 36-48 and 1 pack of wyeast should be sufficiant, i am mostly concerned because i don't know. dont want any really hot flavors from too much yeast (would not be good in an amber).

any help is appreciated.

the following pics are from this morning, look how much milkier it is already!

below are all the pics from last night we gave my new stir plate i made a shot,i think it turned out really well. i am nplease tell me what you think. overall i spent about $30 plus i have 2 more fan s for anyone interested in making their own.
















my helpers for this experiment