Begin Brewing!

The five variants of Starting Gun Ale While taking an inventory of my brewing supplies this week, I noticed that I had five packages of yeast that were older than I realized. One had no date on it at all. Another was past its "best by" date, and the last was over two years old (and I decided to throw it out). Rather than let these yeasts go to waste, I decided I should probably grow them so they'd be usable when I am ready for them. I could do that by mixing up a batch of "Fast Pitch" wort starter from cans and using my stir plate.  That would mean spending at least $10 on the cans of starter. I'd have nothing to show for it but the yeast, which would be OK but kind of a waste of time and materials. A good yeast starter wort is typically said to have an Original Gravity (OG) of 1.036 to 1.040.  I decided to build a wort recipe with a gravity of 1.040 SG (10.0 Brix) to use as a yeast starter. Rather than make a disposable wort that served as a start...

Recently, I started inventorying my brewing ingredients.  In the process, I realized that I had ordered everything needed to make a Trappistes Rochefort 10 clone recipe I'd seen a while ago.  I just didn't have the yeast.  Then I remembered that I'd bought a few cans of Fast Pitch a while ago and hadn't used them.  I also had a bottle of Rochefort 10 in the fridge.  Time to grow my own yeast! I sanitized my one-liter flask and magnetic stirring bar.  I sprayed Star San on the bottle of beer, the opener, and the lid of the Fast Pitch can and let them soak a little.  Then I poured Fast Pitch into the flask and enough distilled water to hit the 1L mark.  I opened the bottle of Rochefort 10, poured most of it into a glass for my own enjoyment, and left about a quarter-inch in the bottle.  This leftover part I swirled vigorously until I could see no more yeast sediment in the bottom of the bottle.  I tipped this "slurry" into the flask of...

What is a Yeast Starter? Yeast is the workhorse of the home brewing process.  It is the yeast that will take your sugary wort and turn it into beer.  In many cases, it is the yeast that will also work in the bottle to carbonate your beer.  In many beer styles, like Belgian ales, yeast also contributes flavor to the beer.  Given the importance of yeast in home brewing, making sure that you pitch a sufficient quantity of healthy yeast into your wort is vital to ensuring that your finished beer is going to be good. When you purchase yeast for home brewing, you'll typically receive either a packet of dry yeast which must be reconstituted with warm water, a tube filled with yeast in a slurry, or a packet that contains yeast and an activation solution in a "break-open" capsule.  If you are brewing a relatively small batch, or a lower-gravity beer, and your package of yeast is within its "best by" date, you may not need a yeast starter at all. If your yeast isn...