Mastering Yeast Cultivation: Brewing Beer's Secret Ingredient

Cultivating yeast is a key part of the brewing process. You can either grow from a package provided by a manufacturer or from your own wild, native yeast from your region. To grow your own brewer’s yeast, you can make your wort with your malted and cracked grain, boil, steep, strain, and cool it off, with your hops added, and then pitch a small amount of yeast.

Start small and feed yeast with sugar (wort) and oxygen

To grow your own brewer’s yeast, start small and feed it with sugar (wort) and oxygen. You can start with a manufacturer’s strain by buying a small package of yeast and propagating it. To propagate yeast, you will grow it from a small amount of biomass to a much larger amount which will allow you to pitch it into your next brew.

You can save a small amount of the yeast and culture it very soon after pitching the rest into the starter or your batch of beer. At this point, you have two options. You can culture the yeast on agar plates for refrigerated storage for a few months, or prepare the yeast for freezing and store it for a year or longer.

The key to growing any yeast is to start small and then keep it constantly fed with sugar (your wort) and oxygenated. Thus, your yeast will thrive. After 3 days of fermenting your small amount of wort, you can pitch that 1 gallon into 5 gallons. After another 3 days, you can step up to 10 gallons, and so on for another 3 days until you have the volume you want. You can follow through with this process as many times as you like and continue to grow your yeast culture or simply turn it into a batch of delicious beer, depending on your space limitations.

The primary benefit of growing your own yeast is that level of reliability and control. If you grow your own yeast, you know you will always have yeast. And yeast grows on its own under ideal conditions quite rapidly, so you never have to worry about running out. Further, manufacturers are not always, and indeed cannot always be, reliable in terms of the health of the yeast that arrives. When you grow your own yeast, you know you have viable, vital yeast thriving in house.

Pitch yeast into wort and ferment for 3 days

To pitch yeast into wort and ferment for 3 days, you can follow these steps:

Firstly, make your wort as you normally would. About 1 gallon is plenty, with your malted and cracked grain, boiled, steeped, strained, and cooled off, with your hops added. Then, pitch a small amount of yeast into the wort. This is important because pitching too much yeast can stress it out.

After 3 days of fermenting your small amount of wort, you can pitch that 1 gallon into 5 gallons. After another 3 days, you can step up to 10 gallons, and so on for another 3 days until you have the volume you want.

You can follow through with this process as many times as you like and continue to grow your yeast culture or simply turn it into a batch of delicious beer, depending on your space limitations.

The key to growing any yeast is to start small and then keep it constantly fed with sugar (your wort) and oxygenated. Thus, your yeast will thrive.

Growing your own yeast is reliable and controlled, as you know you will always have yeast. When you grow your own yeast, you know you have viable, vital yeast thriving in your house.

Grow yeast from biomass to large amounts

To grow yeast from biomass to large amounts, you can start with a manufacturer’s strain by buying a small package of yeast that you want to start with and propagating it. To propagate yeast, you will grow it from a small amount of biomass to a much larger amount which will allow you to pitch it into your next brew.

The key to growing any yeast is to start small and then keep it constantly fed with sugar (your wort) and oxygenated. Thus, your yeast will thrive. You can follow through with this process as many times as you like and continue to grow your yeast culture or simply turn it into a batch of delicious beer, depending on your space limitations.

After 3 days of fermenting your small amount of wort, you can pitch that 1 gallon into 5 gallons. After another 3 days, you can step up to 10 gallons, and so on for another 3 days until you have the volume you want.

You can also culture the yeast on agar plates for refrigerated storage for a few months, or prepare the yeast for freezing and store it for a year or longer.

The primary benefit of growing your own yeast is that level of reliability and control. If you grow your own yeast, you know you will always have yeast. And yeast grows on its own under ideal conditions quite rapidly, so you never have to worry about running out.

Culture yeast on agar plates for storage

To culture yeast on agar plates for storage, you can save a small amount of yeast and culture it very soon after pitching the rest into the starter or your batch of beer. You can then culture the yeast on agar plates for refrigerated storage for a few months, or prepare the yeast for freezing and store it for a year or longer. Plates are preferred if your yeast source is sediment from a previous batch or a bottle-conditioned beer, commercial or homebrew. This will allow you later to isolate, select and propagate from a single yeast colony, virtually ensuring that you have an uncontaminated form of the strain.

The key to growing any yeast is to start small and then keep it constantly fed with sugar (your wort) and oxygenated. Thus, your yeast will thrive. You can follow through with this process as many times as you like and continue to grow your yeast culture or simply turn it into a batch of delicious beer, depending on your space limitations.

To start with a manufacturer’s strain, you simply buy a small package of yeast that you want to start with and propagate it. To propagate yeast, you will grow it from a small amount of biomass to a much larger amount which will allow you to pitch it into your next brew.

The primary benefit of growing your own yeast is that level of reliability and control. If you grow your own yeast, you know you will always have yeast. And yeast grows on its own under ideal conditions quite rapidly, so you never have to worry about running out. Further, manufacturers are not always, and indeed cannot always be, reliable in terms of the health of the yeast that arrives. When you grow your own yeast, you know you have viable, vital yeast thriving in house.

Grow yeast rapidly under ideal conditions

The key to growing yeast is to start small and keep it constantly fed with sugar (your wort) and oxygenated. This will allow your yeast to thrive. You can start with a manufacturer’s strain by buying a small package of yeast and propagating it. To propagate yeast, you will grow it from a small amount of biomass to a much larger amount which will allow you to pitch it into your next brew.

You can also grow your own brewer’s yeast by making your wort as you naturally would, about 1 gallon is plenty, with your malted and cracked grain, boiled, steeped, strained, and cooled off, with your hops added, and then pitch a small amount of yeast, so you don’t stress it out. After 3 days of fermenting your small amount of wort, you can pitch that 1 gallon into 5 gallons. After another 3 days, you can step up to 10 gallons, and so on for another 3 days until you have the volume you want.

You can follow through with this process as many times as you like and continue to grow your yeast culture or simply turn it into a batch of delicious beer, depending on your space limitations.

Many brewers have been left with a wort and no yeast to ferment it, which means no beer can be produced. Thus, the primary benefit of growing your own yeast is that level of reliability and control. If you grow your own yeast, you know you will always have yeast. And yeast grows on its own under ideal conditions quite rapidly, so you never have to worry about running out.

Frequently asked questions