Making Yeast Starters

Liquid yeast can really improve your beers, but they are expensive compared to dry yeast so treat them carefully

Liquid yeast is alive. So how it is treated will determine how it performs. Check the store you buy it from. The yeast should be stored in a fridge. Do not buy yeast that isn’t looked after. Check the date it was packaged. Naturally fresher the better. When you purchase your liquid yeast take it straight home and put in the fridge. They will die if left in a hot car or exposed to high temperatures.

Now when you get it you will want to make a starter and have it ready for your fermenter.

First rule of starters, BE CLEAN. Sanitation is very very important when making starters. Clean and sterilize everything. Wash your hands well. Sanitize the packet or test tube before opening. Sanitize the scissors. Sanitize the lids, funnels, workbench, bungs and necks of bottles before opening. Minimize the time of exposure to air. Don’t cough on the gear. Try not to breath on the equipment. Sterilize the starter jars thoroughly. Good sanitizing includes washing until clean in neopink or dishwasher detergent, soaking in bleach solution then rinsing in boiled water. Or wash till clean, rinse and use idophor or 70% alcohol in a spray bottle. Sanitize around bungs, lids etc with alcohol or idophor on a wipe or in a spray bottle before starting.

Making a starter

Starters are a way of making sure that you are pitching lots of happy hungry yeasts into your wort. They are made by adding yeast to sterilized wort. Second rule; use wort of approximately 1.040 sg for starters. This works out to be 1g of dry malt extract (DME) per 10 ml of water. Don’t use sugar or dextrose, as this doesn’t supply any nutrients for the yeast.

To make a 1 litre of wort for a starter for a batch of beer you will need a bottle of about 2 litres volume, a bored bung to fit and an airlock. Dissolve 100 gm DME in 1 litre of water then boil with the lid on for 10 minutes. Dissolve the DME by stirring over heat. Do not stop stirring until the DME is dissolved or it will sink to the bottom and scorch adding burnt flavors to your beer. Watch out for boil overs. You will have to stay by the stove the whole time or you will end up with malt all over the stove. By keeping the lid on you are sterilizing the inside of the lid at the same time. Cool this to room temperature. Leave the lid on until it is cooled. Get your sanitized bung, bottle, airlock and funnel on the sanitized bench.

Wipe around the lid of the saucepan with sanitizing solution. Sanitize yeast container. Take off lid, pour solution into bottle, add yeast, put in bung with airlock, shake for 1 minute to add some oxygen and leave to ferment at about 20 deg C.

When adding yeast to a starter make sure both are close to the same temperature to avoid shocking the yeast. Put the starter solution and yeast sample on the bench to both warm to room temperature before mixing.

After 24 – 48 hours there will be lots of movement through the airlock and lots of foam on the surface. Pitch the starter into your freshly prepared wort, oxygenate for a few minutes by stirring a lot and fermentation will start off quickly and strongly. Oxygen is important at the start of fermentation.

Getting value for money with your liquid yeast

How to make the liquid yeast last for 18 brews.

You will need six empty stubbies. Follow the above instructions and make you litre starter. Add your yeast. Leave at 20 deg, wait 24-48 hours. Before you pitch your yeast, pour about 100ml in each sterile stubbie,cap, and put in fridge next to the condenser where it is nice and cold, close to 0 deg C in temperature. This puts the yeast to sleep.

When you are ready to brew, say two days before, make a 1 litre starter in your 2 litre bottle, and add one stubbie, wait 24-48 hours, pitch most into your brew (except 100ml) and put that back into a sanitized stubby. Each stubby can be used 3 times before the risk of infection starts to become a problem. So you can easily make a liquid yeast purchased last for 18 brews (3 times 6 stubbies). If you are very clean you can get 6 brews out of a stubbie. That’s 36 batches.

If the yeast is not stored at close to 0 degrees C it will still ferment very slowly and may explode your bottles, or more importantly actually die. If you get an increase in pressure you may have to bleed the bottles of excess pressure. Pull the bottles out of the fridge, sanitise the bottles around the lids, gently just prise up a few crimps on the lid with a bottle opener, just far enough to allow excess pressure to bleed out, run the capper back over them and put straight back in fridge. If this is not done when you go to use the starter it may spray out on the ceiling or froth onto the bench, or worst case explode.

Label the stubbies, "Warning do not drink", the date, type of yeast and how many times used.

How much starter to make

Third rule of starters, use 5% for ales, 10% for lagers. So for an 20 litre batch of ale make a starter of 1 litre. For a lager make a bigger starter, 2 litres. For high alcohol beer double again.

Fourth rule of starters, step up in increments of ten. If you are making a starter from a small sample step up a few times and each step is 10 times bigger than the last. Say you are brewing from a yeast sediment from a bottle fermented beer. Coopers is readily available in Australia. The yeast sediment is only about a teaspoon or two. Your first step would be to 20 ml volume, second 200 ml and third 2000ml (in bottles of 50 ml, 300ml and 3000ml.) Getting a culture from a bottle is very hit and miss. It depends on how the bottle is handled whether the yeast is alive or not. You will need 3 bottles that have airlocks and bungs fitted of volumes 50 ml, 300 ml and 3000ml. Pour the yeast slurry into the small jar with 20 ml of starter solution. If you see signs of movement, frothing and positive pressure in the airlock, the yeast is still alive and start stepping up.

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