Things You'll Need:
- bottle of good unfiltered beer with yeast sediment
- drilled stopper to fit bottle
- airlock
- vodka or sanitizing solution
- undrilled stopper to fit bottle
- 1 oz dry malt extract
- covered saucepan
- beer glass
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Step 1
Airlock, drilled stopper and undrilled stopper.Get Ready: Acquire a bottle of your favorite unfiltered ale. Sanitize your airlock and stoppers and be sure the stoppers fit the bottle.
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Step 2
Select Your Yeast: Carefully pour your favorite unfiltered beer leaving the sediment in the bottle. This can be a commercial beer or a homemade one. Carefully taste test the beer. From the glass not the Bottle! If you detect any off flavors use another beer. Off flavors are usually the result of the yeast. If you don't like it now, you won't like it much better in a batch of homemade beer. Fill airlock with vodka or sanitizing solution. Seal bottle with stopper and airlock to protect yeast.
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Step 3
Prepare Your Wort: Brew up a cup of wort with a cup of water and a 1 ounce of dry malt extract. Boil for 15 minutes to sanitize. Cover and allow wort to cool to room temperature. Also allow the bottle with the yeast sediment to come to room temperature.
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Step 4
Bottle with airlock in place.Pitch Your Yeast: When your bottle with the yeast sample and your wort reach the same temperature carefully pour the wort into the bottle. Cap with undrilled stopper and aerate by shaking. Remove stopper and replace with airlock.
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Step 5
Allow Yeast to Multiply: Leave the bottle in a warm (60-70F) dark place for 3-4 days. Now go back to step 3 and prepare another cup of wort. Cool and add this fresh wort to your yeast starter. Aerate again and replace airlock. You should now have ~one pint of yeast starter.
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Step 6
Make a Batch of Homebrew: Use your homemade yeast starter to brew a batch of great tasting homemade beer.
