Creating a yeast starter for your home brewing escapades can help speed up the main fermenting process of your home brew. Home Brewing beer in China is difficult because all the supplies are Chinafied. With help of this post, we hope that we can share an interesting experience for home brewing beer and to help you develop a yeast starter with Chinese supplies.
The yeast starter takes about 1 hour to complete and ready to use in a few days for your home brew.
Ingredients:
- Two Quart Size Mason Jars
- Tyvek Material (Can be bought on Taobao.com)
- Dry Malt Extract – 5 ounces (140 Grams)
(Can be bought at Taobao.com or Great Leap Brewery)
- Water for the Wort (1500 ml of water, roughly under 2 quarts)
- Warm Water for activating the yeast (1 cup)
- Funnel
- Thermometer
- Boiling pot
- Ice
- Ladle
- Spray bottle
- Hydrogen Peroxide
(Chinese Pharmacy or Hospital)
- Yeast from Great Leap Brewery
Make sure to sanitize all the things that come into contact with the yeast starter's wort.
Step 1: Cleanse and sanitize anything that will come into contact with the wort. We used a spray bottle with 50% Hydrogen Peroxide and 50% sterilized water. We sprayed everything used in the process of brewing this yeast starter.
Step Two: Boil the water and add the dry malt extract into the pot. Make sure that the wort gets to boiling point for 20 minutes. Don’t over-boil the wort because it will create a sticky mess. Once it boils, let it simmer. The temperature of the wort should not exceed 185 degrees Fahrenheit (85 Celsius), but not fall below 170 degrees Fahrenheit (77 Celsius).
Warm water for the yeast starter should be around 42 Celsius (107 degrees Fahrenheit)
Step Three: Use 1 cup of warm water to add with the yeast to activate it. Mix with a fork for about 5 minutes or until the consistency is equally distributed.
Step Four: Cool the wort by adding ice and water into your kitchen sink. The temperature needs to drop to 70-75 degrees Fahrenheit (21 degrees Celsius). After it reaches that temperature, add the wort to the mason jars by using a ladle. Don’t fill the jars all the way to the top. The yeast needs room to breath. Fill about 80-85%
Make sure to cool the wort as quickly as possible to prevent contamination.
Remember to sterilize anything that comes into contact with the wort.
Step Five: Add the yeast water to the mason jars and stir lightly until the jar’s medium is consistent. Put in the fridge for three days or leave it out if you plan to use it the next day. The yeast starter can be saved for up to a week in your fridge. When your ready to use the yeast start, you will notice a nice thick yeast cake developed on the bottom of your starter vessel aka Mason Jars. You will have much more yeast then what you started with. This is the whole point of making a yeast starter. When you use the yeast starter make sure to mix lightly and evenly distribute the yeast before using it for your home brew.
