Yeast starter

[ThaBrewFather06]

I'm fairly new at brewing and i wanted to know what is the process for making a yeast starter?

 

[AVLbrewing]

Essentially you will brew a small batch of wort (unfermented beer) usually using a light dried malt extract. Then you cool the wort to yeast pitching temperatures and then add your liquid yeast. You will want to aerate your starter (by giving it a swirl every time you think about it), and keep it in a dark warm place. I normally keep mine in a kitchen cabinet. Wait 12-24hrs, and then brew, cool and pitch the yeast into your full batch of wort.

Here is a youtube video:


And a PDF that comes with Northern Brewer yeast starter kits:
http://www.northernbrewer.com/documentation/YeastStarter.pdf

Cheers!

 

[ThaBrewFather06]

Is this the same process of growing yeast? If i do this and split it do i get more yeast every time i split them?

 

[freisste]

Is this the same process of growing yeast? If i do this and split it do i get more yeast every time i split them?

It depends on volume and specific gravity (basically how much sugar there is for the yeast to eat). It is possible to more than double your yeast count with a single step starter.

So to answer your question, yea, you could pitch yeast into your starter, let the yeast multiply to double, then split it and use each half in another starter.

You COULD effectively do this forever, but it is possible to mutate the yeast and you will eventually end up with storage issues. Also you will have a TON of one strain of yeast. As a result, most people leave it to Wyeast and white labs to reproduce yeast at significant numbers, but you could start your own mini yeast production plant in your kitchen if you wanted.

 

[ACbrewer]

Is this the same process of growing yeast? If i do this and split it do i get more yeast every time i split them?

You can but you have to be careful to not contaminate it. Also the pro's (Chris White in Yeast) state that after a few times of doing that they yeast quality degrades. I've wondered about that statement. On the one hand, he knows what he is talking about, on the other, he is WhiteLabs.

What confuses me about it is that is yeast were only good for 5 to 15 pitches, how the heck do we drink a Beer today and years ago and they taste the same?

But basically you can do that. In YEAST they detail how to grow yeast from slats or plates, which requires like 4 or 5 steps from slat to pitchable.