How To Make Starter

Homebrew Starter from Under the Copper Tree on Vimeo.

M is convinced that he can salvage his cider. He's been looking up his options, and he's settled on fermenting it again. But before he can throw everything in the brew pails, he needs to get that starter ready.

Here are the ingredients/supplies that he used:

The sugar-yeast ratio will determine how long you have to wait until the starter is ready. According to M it's usually about 2 days, and his batch was done in a little over one. So tomorrow is brew day.

We'll let you know how this turns out.

UPDATE (1/29/10):
The starter worked like a charm. I pitched it into my newest batch of wort and 8 hours later I had a mess of happy yeasty beer spurting out of the stopcock (Wow, everything I just wrote sounds incredibly dirty in so many ways. Hmm, maybe that's why I like homebrewing so much.) Anyway, in order to keep some active brewing yeast on hand for my next batch, I boiled half a cup of water and added table sugar until it no longer dissolved. I let this sugary concoction cool and added it to my empty-yet-yeast-covered starter bottle, covered it with a balloon again, and let it sit out for the next couple of days. The yeast settles at the bottom, so you can easily pour out most of the supernatant and replace with a saturated sugar solution all over again. This will keep your culture happy and growing for a long long time. If you want to save it in the refrigerator, just be sure to take it out and feed it about once a week.