More Yeast!

Like some evil genius in a classic horror movie, I like to grow my army of minions! My minions happen to be microscopic, but they still are powerful - they make my beer for me!

I posted previously about getting a late start on my brewing resolutions... I want to make sure I am brewing regularly, so that my process becomes smooth again. So this weekend - 3 batches! Today I started my yeast for a California Common, an Old Ale, and a Northern English Brown (these last two are going to come from the same grain bill - see my earlier post regarding parti gyle brewing).

I have never brewed a California Common, and I have never worked with the two yeasts I will be using on my Old Ale and my Northern English Brown. I have made two Old Ales in years past; the first one I spiced as a holiday beer, and it did not turn out very well (I under-pitched the first 5 gallons, which were so estery it was only good for mulled ale; the second five gallons were OK). I have brewed both Southern and Northern English Brown in the past, both from kits; these were OK as well, but I am striving for something better.

For my starters, I use the basic metric formula as spelled out in John Palmer's How to Brew: 100 grams of DME for each liter of wort (or 125 g of LME). For "normal" gravity ales (1.050 or less) I tend to just do 1L starters, and for higher gravities I'll do 2 or 3L. If I am brewing a lager or brewing for competition, I use Jamil's pitching rate calculator (www.mrmalty.com, also available on the Wyeast website) to be more precise.

I built myself a simple stir plate from plans available on the internet, and generally follow all of the sanitation instructions published by established homebrewing authors. I use 1 gallon jugs, which I discovered have a slightly convex bottom, making them useless on the stir plate. Eventually, I'll get myself some large Erlenmeyer flasks, but this is not preventing me from making decent yeast starters.