First Yeast Starter!

I finally took the plunge and invested in the gear needed to do a yeast starter.  I picked up a stir plate, a 5L Erlenmeyer Flask, large stir magnet, some extra light DME, and some yeast nutrients.  I've anticipated learning more about this aspect for some time, but I didn't want to over complicate things initially.
Understanding the dynamics of yeast is a challenge for me.  There are so many aspects to consider such as how clean/sterile the environment is as there is wild yeast in the air around us, the temperature, the gravity/sugar levels, oxygen needs, etc...  In brewing the goal is to raise healthy yeast cells more than anything.  If you're environment or sugar levels are off, you may make the yeast work too hard, or too little.  These situations can result in yeast that spends more energy building up cell walls, and not necessarily the healthiest of yeast to use.

Brewers also try to measure how much yeast they are pitching.  Considering most calculations are done in the billions, how do you count a billion yeast cells!  There are several techniques I've read about, but ultimately I decided to use online calculators to help me pull correct amounts together.

http://www.brewersfriend.com/yeast-pitch-rate-and-starter-calculator/

First I thought I would try to grow yeast from a bottle as I was going to make a Scottish Strong Ale next which called for a Belhaven yeast, so I figured I needed to culture that from a bought bottle.  However when trying to buy a beer to culture from, I could not find any that were bottle conditioned, they all looked clean as can be.  My assumption was that they have been filtered, and possibly pasteurized.  Even if not pasteurized it would be real hard to build up enough yeast.  I went onto plan B, which was to use a Scottish Ale yeast and simply build a large starter.  This seemed to be a safer way to go anyway.

Starting with the Wyeast smack pack, I knew I was starting with approx 100 billion cells.  However based on the age of the yeast, the calculator thought I would only get around 73% of that.  The calculator estimated I would need approx 400 billion cells.  This meant I needed a starter with approx 10.9 oz of DME starter.

Now to start this thing off.  I warmed up the smack pack, and gave it a good smack to get started.  Then I measured out 3L of water, and 10.9 oz of DME.  I mixed that together directly in the flask, and put it on the stove.  I've read/heard conflicting things here about this step.  Some people say you can heat these flasks directly on the stove, some say it can crack if it gets uneven heat so you should try to heat it less directly.  I thought I would try by putting a large frying pan on my stove and putting the flask on top of that.  Unfortunately it never came up to a boil.  After a while I figured this wasn't working so I went ahead and placed the flask directly over the flame on my stove.  This finally brought it up to a boil.

I have also read different discussions on how long to boil.  Some people boil as little as a minute, some up to 15.  I went ahead and let boil for only a few minutes.  I felt this was enough to sanitize everything inside the flask, and would have dissolved the DME just fine.  I should also note I bought a foam cap for the flask which I had on during the boil so it would sanitize as well.  After the boil I simply set the new wort to the side and slowly let cool down to room temp while the smack pack was growing.

That night before bed I finally pitched the yeast into the flask, and let it do its thing.  By the morning I could see activity, but not ready to pitch into my brew.  Watching the yeast during the day it slowly built up a foam top with bubbling, which then slowly died down.  Eventually about 24 hours after pitching, there was no foam left and it looked like it completed.  I went ahead and left it on the plate over night again before cold crashing.

This morning when I woke up the magnet had spun off the stir plate magnet so it stopped spinning, this allowed some of the yeast to start to settle out.  This morning I put the flask into the fridge and will let it settle out further.  I later plan to move the flask into the fermentation chamber which is set to 60 degrees, will probably do this around 4pm.  Then before bed tonight I will pour off the spent wort on top of the yeast bed, and pitch the remaining yeast into the beer I brewed yesterday.

Gotta start somewhere, and am interested to see how this all goes.  I think the biggest risk I have taken here is leaving my wort hanging out overnight without yeast.  Fortunately I am able to quickly cool my wort with my counter-flow wort chiller, so I rush past most of the dangerous temperatures.  Assuming my sanitizing was good, I should be ok.  Not to mention most the time when using a smack-pack, it takes a good 24 hours before the yeast really starts working.  However with the starter I made it will be very quick to start, so I am probably on a similar timeline as normal at this point.  The lesson here is to start my yeast starter 2-3 days prior.

I'll let everyone know how it goes!