Beaker Instead of Flask for Starter?

[Clint Yeastwood]

I bought myself a yeast starter kit consisting of packets of DME, a flask, a stopper, and an airlock. So far, so good. Then I tried to use it.

The instructions said to heat water in the flask in the microwave. Thing is, there is no microwave outside of Livermore lab that will hold an upright Ehrlenmeyer. I had to dig out a butane hotplate.

The instructions also said to dump the DME into the flask after the water got hot. Well, it turns out DME will not go through a funnel into a flask full of steaming water. It turns into taffy as soon as the steam hits it.

I managed to get most of the DME in there. I boiled the solution, sanitized everything, and produced a starter.

Now I am thinking of using a beaker next time. A beaker won't take an airlock, but people are telling me airlocks are stupid, so it seems to me I should be able to put sanitized foil or something over a beaker without problems. Any reason not to do this?

It appears the kit's instructions should tell people to put the DME and water in the flask together. Perhaps I am overlooking something.

 

[day_trippr]

fwiw, when I brew up starters I heat the water to a boil on the stove in a pot, set the pot in the kitchen sink, stir in the DME and any nutrients, lid the pot and stop the drain, then fill the sink with cold water to chill the pot and wort therein. Once chilled to ~70°F I pour it in an e-flask also setting in the sink.

Zero drama or risk to the wife's sanity (wort boil-overs are about the worst thing to clean off a gas range top) and no shattered glass from direct heating...

Cheers!

 

[IslandLizard]

+1^ to boiling starter wort in a clean (stainless preferred) kitchen pot.
When done, cover with a well-fitting lid, and put into a water-filled sink or a plastic dish-wash tub to chill. You may need to exchange the water for cold, once, to get it to 70F or thereabout. Then pour into your well-sanitized flask using a funnel.

Make sure your (liquid) yeast has come to room temps before you pitch it into your starter. Ideally they should be within 10°F from one another.

If using a smack pack, let come to room temps first, then smack and let stand for a few hours before adding to the starter wort. Then pour all the liquid into your starter vessel with wort.

Loosely crimping a piece of aluminum foil over the opening is standard procedure, then let her stir away. I usually oxygenate the starter, especially when in a hurry to get her going, but it's not mandatory.

Although it could be done, there's no advantage to using beakers for starters.

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

How do you clean a big flask? I don't see any way to do it without buying one of those crazy brushes.

 

[day_trippr]

I have a couple of 2 liter e-flasks and a 5 liter e-flask and clean them with a simple 2" bottle brush with a roughly 14" wire handle.
Also, for the record I should have noted I sanitize the flask(s) used with standard Star San mix before filling with the cooled starter wort...

Cheers!

 

[wepeeler]

How do you clean a big flask? I don't see any way to do it without buying one of those crazy brushes.

A spoonful of PBW and HOT water works very well. If caked, let soak for a bit. If not, a few whirls around the flask cleans it up nicely. Rinse and repeat as needed. Brushes help with any extra caked-on mess.

 

[oakbarn]

We just use a Stainless Pot to heat the Water, Pour in the DME and Boil. Check the Gravity. Cool. Pour into Flask and Cover with Foil. You need to be very careful with the cheap flasks as they ARE not the ones a real lab has. Direct heating in my mind is crazy for those that come in a Starter Kit. We also always use a cloth to set them on anything except the stir plate. We have broken several over the years and it is a sticky mess.

 

[DavidWood2115]

+1 to boiling in a pot. I cracked an e-flask on my gas range a while back. Never again.

I also put my pot on a kitchen scale, tare it, then weigh the DME in the pot. Minimum mess. I add a couple of liters of RO (by eye) and boil it. I usually set it on low and ignore it until it boils. It won’t boil over if you boil on low heat (it takes longer, but who cares if you don’t need to watch it). Once boiling, I time it for 10 minutes, then cool in a sink of cold water. Once cool, I transfer to a 4 liter e-flask, top off to 3 liters with RO water (I overbuild and save my starters), pitch and cover with foil. Works great.

 

[MikeCo]

I also boil the DME and water in a pot and then add to the starter flask. There is no reason you need to use an Erlenmeyer flask. Any sanitized container will work. I've used one-gallon cider jugs at times. If you plan to use a stir plate, just make sure the bottom is flat enough to keep the stir bar in place. A large beaker should work fine.

I find I can clean by Erlenmeyers just by rinsing quickly after use without letting it dry, and then shaking/soaking in water with detergent. I've never had to brush them out.

 

[day_trippr]

fwiw, there is no need to boil starter wort for more than a minute. At 212°F sanitation occurs in literally seconds...

Cheers!

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

fwiw, there is no need to boil starter wort for more than a minute. At 212°F sanitation occurs in literally seconds...

View attachment 809374

Cheers!

That will make sanitizing my hands a lot more pleasant.

 

[Deadalus]

I use a SS pot with lid and cool in the kitchen sink. I save the ice packs I periodically get with yeast shipments rather than just cool water as it's faster and my ice maker is broken.

Having recently bought an IR temp gun, I find it super useful useful for determining temperatures of the starter wort and yeast packs as well as prior to pitching the starter.

 

[Spivey24]

Boiling in large SS pot will avoid spillovers and make DME easier. I pour it into flask while still hot to sanitize the flask. Place a piece of foil over flask immediately to sanitize that.

 

[InspectorJon]

I use these for stir plate flasks. The coffee beakers are pretty cheap at the second hand store. Look for the flattest bottom you can find.

 

[InspectorJon]

The one on the left is from an automatic drip coffee maker, similar to Mr. Coffee. They always have a dozen different ones of these at the thrift store. I have broken and replaced a couple now. I take the handles off and they fit in the Instant Pot to get "sterilized". I pour starter wort into them out of the pan after boiling it on the stove. You can cool the wort first or pour it in hot and let it cool in the beaker. It holds close to 2 liters. The one on the right is the beaker from my french press coffee maker. It's a good size for a smaller starter.

 

[tracer bullet]

I do a flask with a crazy brush to clean it. It's a big flask so I can have a lot of surface space, that's one thing they suck for (balanced out, almost, by the ability to put a stopper in it).

I buy the pre-made starters, It's just too easy and I'm always doing it at night with other things going on at the same time ("OK, Honey, only 1 more minute, I swear"). But I only brew once a month and even then it's sometimes a smaller batch where a direct pitch is enough especially the brands with well over the 100 billion cells per pouch.

There are a lot of good ideas here. I won't recommend people buy the cans of starter, but dang they are convenient.

 

[TimLa]

Pressure can in 1 qt canner jars, I do 7 at once, that's 7 brew days. Each jar gets 100g DME, a pinch of yeast nutrient, fill with (in my case, RO) tap water to 1/2 inch headspace, Wipe the rims, add rings and tops, tighten firmly, shake to mix contents, loosen a bit, 20 minutes at 15 psi. There's the alternative to buying pre-made wort.
Alternative to DME is to just make some 1.035 wort with mashing 2-row, then proceed as described above.
Cleaning: As soon as you pitch, take that flask to the kitchen, rinse well, fill with water, let soak overnight, warm PBW, shouldn't really even need to brush it out.