My Two Cents Worth

By Charlie Webster

Brew-Tek Yeast Culturing Kit

I’ve had a desire to "get into" yeast culturing since I first started brewing 10 gallon batches last winter. At approximately $4.00 per Wyeast packet, and two packs per batch, the cost of yeast was a significant portion of the price of making a batch of beer. Keep in mind that I’m no microbiologist (in fact, I managed to have never taken a biology class in school or college), and I share my household with a bunch of animals. Everything I had read about yeast culturing for the homebrewer made it sound so complicated, and so exacting. I wasn’t sure I was ready for plates, slants, multi-stage starters, and sterile procedures. So when I was given a Brew-Tek Yeast Culture Kit, I decided that it might be good place to start. And it was.

I got a kit containing three ale yeasts on mini slants, 6 tubes each containing 10mL of "Super Starter", a quantity of dried "Super Wort" extract, a quantity of prepackaged, sterile, disposable loops, and a booklet entitled "Yeast Culturing for Homebrewers" by Dr. M. B. Raines. The instructions were clear, uncomplicated, and helpful. They were still a little intimidating, containing such headings as "Creating a Sterile Work Environment." I carefully followed the instructions and transferred a miniscule speck of British Ale yeast from a slant to a tube of starter. Let me note here that I did not use the Super Wort from the kit because I had mason jars of sterile starter wort already canned. A couple of days later, there was obvious activity (and cells growing) in the tube of Super Starter. Then, following the directions given in the booklet, I pitched the tube of starter into one of my mason jars of sterile wort, covered it with aluminum foil, and put it in the cupboard above my range, hopefully to grow into enough yeast cells to pitch into my upcoming brew.

On brew day (six days after opening the kit) I had an active starter ready to pitch into my fermenter with my wort. But, just to minimize the chance that something could go wrong (because the batch would become my Christmas beer) I also readied the slurry from one of the fermenters from my previous batch. When the wort was cooled and ready to be pitched, I used my mason jar of yeast, grown from a tiny speck picked up from a slant, in one fermenter and the slurry from the previous batch in the other fermenter. Both fermenters showed signs of activity within a few hours, and both reached high kreusen within 12 hours.

The two fermenters of beer were bottled 15 days later, after having reached final gravities within one point of each other. The two beers taste different, but there is no sign of any off flavors or bacterial contamination in the beer made with the Brew-Tek yeast.

Each Brew Tek kit contains enough ingredients to make 6 batches of beer, from three different yeast slants, and costs less than the same number of Wyeast packs. If you use a little care, and follow directions carefully, it is very easy to produce quality yeast starters from the cultures included in the kits.