How (And Why) To Make A Yeast Starter

Before we start to describe how to make a yeast starter, we should explain what a yeast starter is and why it is useful. Not all brewers use yeast starters. In fact most brewers who use "pitchable" yeast of the sort sold by BrewingUSA and other vendors don't begin to consider their yeast or it's health until just a few minutes before they add it to their wort. Although it does require planning ahead by a few days, making a yeast starter can help you ensure you have a healthy batch of yeast to get your fermentation started quickly.

Why is yeast health important? Yeast actually contributes quite a bit of flavor character to your beer. The healthier the yeast, the better it can do it's job of turning your sweet wort into delicious beer. Obviously dead yeast cannot make beer at all, and it is much better to discover that your yeast is dead before you have committed your time and money to making your batch of beer. The biggest culprit leading to dead yeast is the shipping process. If your yeast spent too much time in a hot truck, it can be adversely affected. This is the reason we package all our yeast in ice before we ship it to you.

Making a yeast starter is basically like making a small batch of beer. Using a medium sized saucepan, bring about 1 pint of water to a boil and then add 1/2 cup of Dry Malt Extract (DME). Allow this mini-wort to boil for 10 minutes, stirring every couple of minutes. Cool it in an ice bath until it is below 80 degrees.

While the mini-wort is cooling, sanitize the outside of the tube of yeast, a funnel, airlock, and 1 gallon bottle. The bottles that you buy apple cider in are ideal because the airlock stoppers we sell fit perfectly in the mouth of most of these bottles. Once the wort is cool, funnel it into the bottle, add the yeast and shake the bottle well to aerate.

Place the airlock in the mouth of the bottle and store the bottle in a cool, calm, dark place. You should see activity in the bottle within a day or so, and because of the high ratio of yeast to wort, the fermentation will probably be quite vigorous. The idea in all of this is to time it so that your starter wort is vigorously fermenting by the time you are ready to brew the full batch of beer. If your starter starts to calm down before you are able to brew, don't panic, but do try to brew within a day or two of the starter entering krausen.

If after two or three days your starter doesn't start, your yeast is probably dead. Count yourself lucky that you didn't destroy a whole batch of beer, and order a new tube of yeast.

A few pointers:

• Allow your yeast to warm up to room temperature before your pitch it into your starter
• When you brew your full batch of beer, just go ahead and pour the whole starter into your cooled wort. One pint of unhopped beer won't affect the rest of the batch at all, especially if you use 1/2 cup of the DME from your recipe anyway