USING YEAST STARTERS

FOR IMPROVED FERMENTATION

Preparing your yeast in a starter before adding it to a juice is
a great way to insure that you will have a successful, sound
fermentation. Creating a yeast starter will help your ferment-
ation take-off more rapidly and finish more completely.

What I like to tell people is that a yeast starter allows the
yeast to hit the juice with its feet running--so to speak. It
gives the yeast a head start so that no time is wasted when its
time for your yeast to get busy.


- So, What Is A Yeast Starter?

A yeast starter is a liquid mixture of nutrients and sugars. Wine
yeast is added to a small amount of this mixture 2 to 6 days
before you are ready to ferment a juice. During this time the
yeast is actually doing a mini fermenting--creating more yeast
cells and becoming stronger.


- What A Yeast Starter Is Not

A yeast starter should not be confused with the rehydration
process that is called for on many packets of dried wine yeast.
Rehydration is simply putting dried yeast in water a few minutes
before you add it to the juice. This is different than making a
yeast starter.

NOTE: I would like to point out that rehydration is a process
that we DO NOT recommend as it can potentially lead to many
problems with only minor benefits. But, that's another story.


- How To Make A Yeast Starter

There are several ways you can go about making a yeast starter.
First of all, you can use a small portion of the juice to be
fermented as a starter. The problem is you need to make the
starter several days before the juice is ready to ferment. So
quite often the juice may not be available yet.

You can also obtain a different juice ahead of time. However, if
it is purchased from the grocery store you must be certain that
there are no preservative in the juice that will interfere with
the yeast. Watch out for ingredients listed on the label such as
Sodium Benzoate, Potassium Sorbate, etc.

You can use fresh juice from apples, grapes or oranges, but fresh
juices must be boiled and cooled before using it as a starter
mix. This is to sterilize the juice. If the juice has been
pasteurized before-hand, then this step is not necessary.

Regardless of where the juice comes from, you can make a yeast
starter with it by adding a 1/4 teaspoon of Yeast Nutrient and 2
teaspoons of sugar for every pint of mix.

One pint of yeast starter is sufficient for 5 gallons of wine.
One gallon of yeast starter is sufficient for 50 gallons of wine
and so on. Just multiply the above recipe as necessary.

If all of the above preparing seems like too much messing around
then we have another, more convenient solution. We have a yeast
starter that requires no juice at all. We call it Quick Starter.

This specially designed starter mix can be used by simply boiling
it with water for 10 minutes and allowing it to cool. It is
packed with a well-rounded selection of 14 different vitamins,
nutrients and foods--chosen specifically for starting your wine
yeast. And, it comes with complete directions.

Once the yeast start has been prepared, you can then add your
wine yeast to it. Add the same amount of wine yeast to the yeast
starter as you would to the entire batch of wine. For example, if
you have a five gallon batch of wine and are preparing a 1 pint
starter, you would want to add one whole 5 gram package of wine
yeast to it.


- How To Use A Yeast Starter

Over the course of 1 to 2 days you will see the starter begin to
foam. With liquid wine yeast it can take a couple of days longer.

But, with most dried wine making yeast it is 1 to 2 days.

Once the activity level of the yeast starter's fermentation
peaks, it is then ready to be added to your juice. For best
results you should not wait until the activity has completely
died down, but rather, add it to a juice while it is still
active.

The best way I have found to gauge when to add a starter to a
juice is to monitor the level of foaming. Right after you see the
foaming peak and start to fall this is the ultimate time to add
it to your must.

When adding the start to your wine, gently swirl the sediment up
off the bottom of the starter first, so that the entire starter
is added to the wine.

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For more information about the wine yeasts and yeast starter we
offer, go to the following link on our web site:
Wine Yeasts and Starters


- Related Articles:

"A Few Words About Nutrients"

"Fermentation 101"