Beer Forum

First off, hello, I am new here. Several of you know me from elsewhere. I've been brewing for a few years.

Tonight I find myself ready to make a starter for brewing tomorrow, and I just realized I have no DME... I was thinking of doing a very small mash just to get some starter wort. Anybody have any tips on doing this? Obviously I can't mash in my standard cooler because its too big for the amount of grain I would need. Does a pound of grain sound about right to yield 2L of starter wort? Would you expect the efficiency of a regular mash at this scale?

Also, I have two bottles of Malta Goya that I bought a while back thinking it might come in handy for this type of situation; anybody ever used it to make a starter?

The malta goya should be perfect.

I went ahead and did a little mash; it worked out pretty well. I used my old circular 5-gallon cooler and CPVC pipe with slits cut in it.

Details, for anybody interested:

Mashed in 2 lbs of pale malt with 3 qts of Water at 165. (strike temp was about 150F)
Mashed-out with 2 quarts more of hot water after 45 minutes.
Collected runnings, then added 2 more quarts of hot water.

I got a total of about 1.5 gallons of wort, which I boiled for about 20 minutes, then canned into three quart mason jars plus 1 liter for tonight's starter. OG 1.038.

So now I have enough starter for the next four batches, hooray!

That's pretty sweet, I'm just not that frugal or maybe I'm just lazy. DME baby!

Too lazy for me too. I did some DME and canned that, but doing a small mash is a little too much work.

I've been doing all-grain starters in a bag in a 1 gal round cooler:

It's just enough for one set of jars in the pressure cooker, so I can mash and can in the evening and let the canner cool overnight. It works pretty well without even measuring anything very precisely - I grind the grain straight into the bag until it looks pretty full, then stir in 170F water until it feels right and it ends up around 150-ish. Let it sit for 30 min, lift out the bag. Pour out the cooler. Lay bag back down and refill with 170F water. Mush around a bit and drain again. I end up with 7x800ml of 1.040-ish wort every time.

As a side note, I just ordered 3 pounds of DME from morebeer.com to round out an order and get the free shipping. It came set up as 6, 1/2 pound bags...perfect for my 2 L starters!

I used to do this with a half gallon drink cooler. I sparged simply by dumping the grain into a large strainer and pouring water over it. My efficiency normally ran about 60% or so. I was only using about a pound of grain so the crappy efficiency didn't really make a difference. I always ended up with wort between 1.035 and 1.040. Worked plenty good enough for me.

I quit doing this when I picked up a 22 quart pressure cooker at a yard sale. Now I do a 5 gallon batch of starter wort 2 or 3 times a year and pressure can it in 1 quart jars. I love using canned starters. Saves a ton of time when getting ready for a brew day.

Wayne