Cheap mini FV for starting your yeasts up

[Spud]

Ok this ones a really simple make-it-yourself...

The idea was inspired by wanting to use a single pack of yeast to start up 4 demijohns. Obviously you'd normally use one pack of yeast per DJ, but it occurred to me why not just grow one pack into lots of live active yeast. So I had a look round for small containers to act as a mini FV. Basically put a small solution of fermentable sugars, yeast nutrients, and the yeast you want in a container, wait a couple of days and you've lots of liquid yeast to go round.

Looking round I finally came up with the 500ml lucozade bottle, peel its label off and an airlock and bung fit with no modification:

Hope this is of use to someone out there.

 

[Twostage]

I love re-purposing. Particularly if it has already served its main purpose.

Must admit I don't always use a full pack of yeast for a DJ. I recently made a triple batch of turbo ciders and set them off with the last three grams of yeast I had in a pack. So they only had 1 gram each and they fermented fine.

Born in Yorkshire ;-)

 

[Spud]

Glad you like it, I like the idea of adding an existing live yeast batch into my mixes, so it's up and doing its thing when I'm ready.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Like it. :thumb:

 

[Fil]

a 2l pet pop bottle works a lil better as u can squeeze out co2 and refill with air for the 02, bang the lid back on and shake like mad to aerate the liquor, and repeat

just crack the lid to let the excess co2 out and when starting off seal up and the pressure build up in the bottle indicates that the yeasties are thriving

the Lucazade bottles are great for yeast storage and rinsing tho the taller thinner shape is good for identifying the layers of live and dead yeast, and the wide mouth helps with the pouring to seperate....

the only drawback is you cant use heat to sanitise pet and must rely on chemical sanitation, so starsan is a good sanitiser to consider..

 

[Spud]

I just use vwp and a selection of bottle brushes to sterilise everything, bought a b and q builders bucket for smaller stuff and a fv bin for bigger stuff depending on what I'm cleaning up. It's worked well enough as a cheap piece of kit.

 

[Mish]

I like to use 6 pint bottles for my starters as
A. They are readily available with the amount my family gets through milk!
B. For a 1 or 2 litre starter always get plenty of air space for shaking and getting that O2 in

As Fil said though does still require use of chemicals to sterilise but as a brewer it's not like I don't have any to spare. The bottle idea is great for storing though!!