Over six months ago I purchased a simple yeast starter kit from Northern Brewer, but it had been sitting on my shelve collecting dust. In short, a yeast starter is a method of prepping your yeast to dramatically expand the yeast cell count. A healthier yeast count should speed the fermentation process and hopefully better attenuation. For stronger beers, say OG of 1.080+, a yeast starter is strongly suggested. I was planning on finally brewing my Wee Heavy on July 18th and with an projected OG of 1.083, this was finally the time to make one.
After some literature review and searching a few websites, I found that some of the water-to-wort ratios seemed quite different, but I stuck with something relatively close to my directions and used 750 ml of water with 3/4 cup of Golden Light DME.
Yeast Starter:
- Smack yeast at least 6-8 hours before starting
- Start at least 12 hours before pitching
- Mix 3/4 cup of DME with 750 ml of water
- Bring to a boil, reduce heat and slow boil for 15 mins.
- Sanitize flask, stopper, etc.
- Remove from boil and dump into flask
- Cover top w/ tin foil and insert thermometer
- Chill flask in ice bath to ~ 70 degrees
- Once chilled, dump in yeast & insert airlock
- Shake periodically & store at expected pitching temp
The whole process is quite simple and took just over 30 mins. A small stir plate would work wonders for a yeast starter, but minus one I did try to shake periodically. After 14.5 hours there was no noticeable activity (krausen or airlock activity), yet the starter was muddy brown with suspended yeast. Also the airlock bubbled pretty good after shaking, so some gas was built up. My flask is quite big (2 liter) compared to the actual starter (750 ml).
Covered with foil
Ice bath
All finished
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