# Yeast - Starter or Sprinkle



## WineNewbie

I've seen this discussion before on the forum relating to kits, but my question is with scratch wines. 


Is it best practice to always make a yeast starter when making scratch wines, or can you just sprinkle on top of must like the kits tell you to do? The reason I'm asking is, making a yeast starter is more time consuming and requires me being there for 12 hours adding must to the starter every 2 or 3 hours. With work and two young kids, time is precious! 


So far, I've only done kits, but I recently bought a 2 gallon fermenter to start experimenting with some one-gallon scracth wines. Is it ok to sprinkle? Or will I have trouble getting fermentation going without a starter?


John


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## NorthernWinos

I personally rehydrate my yeast...I know that others just sprinkle it on top of the must.

When I rehydrate I use a thermometer and wait for the water to be the temp listed on the package...100*-109*..I try for 100*-104* [just to be sure that I don't kill it with too hot temperature]Then I put in a few grains of sugar [use to do that making bread, it gives the yeast something to grow on] Now I started putting a few grains of yeast nutrient in as well....then I sprinkle the yeast on top of the water, put a piece of plastic wrap over the measuring cup and set a timer for 10 minutes....In that time period the yeast drops to the bottom, hits the sugar and energizer and started to grow almost instantly....when the time is up I pour it on top of the must...do not stir it...

My must will begin to ferment within hours....I never have to wonder ...WAS THE YEAST ANY GOOD????? I know it was.*Edited by: Northern Winos *


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## smurfe

I always sprinkle it in and have had every batch start so far. I did have one batch that had me worried but after 3 days with the help of a heating pad it got going quite nice.


Smurfe


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## grapeman

Either way works - most of the time. If time is too precious just sprinkle it on top. With the scratch wine wait 24 hours after the sulfite addition before adding the yeast- sprinkle it on top-don't stir and it should be bubbling happily away within a day or two. The only time it is really necessary to make a starter is with melon wines. The melon spoils very quicklly so you need the fermentation to begin almost immediately.


Of course if you have enough time to do it, the starter gives you insurance you start with a vigorous fermentation like NW says.


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## WineNewbie

Thanks for the replies. I'm going tostart a Strawberry wine tonight. I think I'll sprinkle on top and see what happens.


Apple, you mentioned to wait 24 hours after sulfite addition. I don't see where sulphite is added in this recipe until the 1st racking. Should I be sulphiting the original must before primary fermentation?


http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/request162.asp


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## scotty

I use the starter simply because its more fun. There are other benefits but i dont believe they will make your wine any better. I just enjoy seeing bubbles in airlocks I guess




As for myself, I always sulfite the must and wait 24 hours then add pectic enzyme and wait another 24 hours before pitching.



*Edited by: scotty *


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## grapeman

WineNewbie said:


> Thanks for the replies. I'm going tostart a Strawberry wine tonight. I think I'll sprinkle on top and see what happens.
> 
> 
> Apple, you mentioned to wait 24 hours after sulfite addition. I don't see where sulphite is added in this recipe until the 1st racking. Should I be sulphiting the original must before primary fermentation?
> 
> 
> http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/request162.asp




In my opinion any fresh fruit should be sufited to kill or at least inhibit any bacteria and yeast from growth before starting the batch. You need to wait the 24 hours to let the free S02 escape before pitching the yeast otherwise it's action will be inhibited also. If they are processed strawberries you probably don't need to sulfite.


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## Wade E

I sprinkle all the time and never have a problem.


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## masta

I was a die-hard starter maker until I learned sprinkling worked just as well so I say "work smarter not harder"


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## Waldo

Some people say Hydrating is too much fuss
Just sprinkle your yeast all across your must
Others say a starter is the only way to go
otherwise your fermentation will be way too slow
Some say Do It....Others say Dont
Some say it works better, others say it wont.
Well im no expert but I do have some advice
Try it both ways... then your own experience will suffice.




Either way you go, its going to be fine
And you'll end up with some mighty fine wine.


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## Angell Wine

For meads, I make a starter; all other's I don't even sprinkle, I just dump it in.


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## WineNewbie

I don't know why, but I decided to make the starter afterall (using the method NorthernWino mentioned above). I guess I just worried about it not getting going. It was a last minute decision. It's already bubbling away this morning, so it appears all went well. 


Next time I'll sprinkle


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## peterCooper

This is a deep theological question... sprinkling or complete immersion. I tend to follow instructions if it's a kit wine and all the ones I have seen say sprinkle on top. If it doesn't work I can always call George!





If I'm making a scratch wine, when problems occur I need to know what s causing the problem. Hydrating the yeast to start with takes one potential problem out of consideration.


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## scotty

peterCooper said:


> This is a deep theological question... sprinkling or complete immersion. I tend to follow instructions if it's a kit wine and all the ones I have seen say sprinkle on top. If it doesn't work I can always call George!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> If I'm making a scratch wine, when problems occur I need to know what s causing the problem. Hydrating the yeast to start with takes one potential problem out of consideration.




As long as it is not a political question.


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## Coaster

For kits I sprinkle, for fruit or homemade (Welch's) I do both. Cost an extra 79 cents and it works.


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## alley rat

I've been following the directions on the lalvin packets, which do call
for re-hydrating. I kinda like that sugar-in-the-bottom
-of-the-cup-first trick. Think I'll employ that tactic next time
around. I can see where the must would take off immediately. Geez, I
really like this forum.


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## ScubaDon

Oh I really messed up. I added my yeast the same way that Iused to back whenI was making beer. That wasput it in a cup and added about 3/4 of the cup of warm water. This was done right after cleaning everything in C-brite and before starting the mixing of the must. when everything was finished I poured in the cup of yeast that by that time had really foamed up and thickened. I made my batch at about 4 PM by bed time is was bubbling! The hydrometer reading at the begining was 1.082 and in 10 days it was at 1.010. 


Next time I will trythe sprinkle method.*Edited by: ScubaDon *


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## Wade E

Nothing wrong with that. Thats like doing a starter yeast and many
people do it. Its just another step thats all. Sounds like it went
really well to me!


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## Mack

Well, your discussion of yeast, whether sprinkled or hydrated. I've always 
sprinkled and everything has gone all right, however, if you read the
instruction on the lalvin yeast web site(and on theback of the little
package)they recommend hydrating the
yeast. That's what I'm doing now, along with adding a little bit of
yeast nutrient.For me, hydrating the yeast is just a little insurance to make sure
the yeast is good and working. Yeast can slowly die if it gets too hot over a period of time.So the little package
has to behandled properly. So hydrating is just a testing mechanism to
make sure you've got good yeast. Forgive me for going on, but I've
read that if beer yeast is not hydrdated the beer will taste watery. Does
this apply to wine? I'd like to know. Thanks.*Edited by: Mack *


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## Wade E

Mack, I dont make beer what would be very interested in a side by side taste test of hydratinig and sprinkle.


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## Mack

All right guys and dolls, here is the word from the horse's mouth. I sent 
an email to the head yeast guy at Lalvin and asked him the question
as to using yeast dry(sprinkle) or to use yeast by hydrating it with warm
waters. Here is his answer(condensed): "We definite do not recommend that you sprinkle the dry yeast on the must, not because of the flavor differences but because of yeast viability and activity. We recommend
you rehydrate the yeast in 40C(about 100 to 110 degrees) in clean
tap wate, not demineralized or distilled. After 15-30 minutes stir yeast
solution gently. Yeast must be brought to with 10C of themust temperature. Don't put a 100degree rehydrated yeast solution directly into the much cooler must because cold shock causes the yeast to produce H2S and to produce petite mutants







that do not ferment very well and it will kill many of the yeast. During the first few
seconds of rehydration, the yeast act like a sponge.....the yeast cannot select what it brings through the cell wall, etc.



Many home wine makers
add the dry yeast directly to the must not knowing they are killing many
of the yeast cells. The remaining live cells have to do all the work and
results in a slower fermentation.We do have several ADY yeast and inactive dry yeast that you can add early in the fermentation to help
extract and preserve color, or add near the end of fermentation to
improve mouth feel....Aerate active yeast the first 48 hours during
fermentation." I hope this helps. It sure helped me. If any of you want the
entire email he sent, send me yours at [email protected]nd I will send it to you.

*Edited by: Mack *


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## Wade E

That is very interesting and informative. Ithink it might be time to stop pushing my luck by sprinkling. I have never had trouble this way but I guess if your not doing it right, your just not doing it right!


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## ras1

Mack said:


> Yeast must be brought to with 10C of themust temperature. Don't put a 100degree rehydrated yeast solution directly into the much cooler must because cold shock causes the yeast to




Yep, and this (IMHO) is why the kit guides tell you to sprinkle.


They fear that if us amatures re-hydrate we will not pay attention to the temperature and kill our yeast.


I re-hydrate every time. I make sure that my starter is close to the temperaure of my must before I pitch. I even use Go-Ferm (love that stuff). 


Using this process I know that my yeast is at peak health, hast stong sell walls and at peak population right from the start.






It takes an extra 15 minutes but for me (I bulk age) that is a drop in the bucket for a 1 year project.


I saw one post where yeast nutient was mentiond...please do not use this for re-hydration...it is intended for use during fermentation.


Have fun and happy fermenting


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## NorthernWinos

I have been rehydrating my yeasts in warm water...I put a pinch [maybe less than 1/4 teaspoon] each of sugar and yeast nutrient....sometimes just the sugar....Should I not use that tiny bit of nutrient???


The yeast is always going like a lava lamp when I add it to the must after 15 minutes of activation.


I have made bread before and used a pinch of sugar in that yeast and just love to watch it grow in the measuring cup.


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## texasermd

(Caution: long winded rant)


Well, I guess I am from the paranoid camp of yeast management. I have used 2 supplemental products in my wine making so far: Go-Ferm and Fermaid K.
Go-Ferm is basically micro nutrients to get the yeast hydrated and off to a healthy start. You can read about it here: 


http://www.lallemandwine.us/products/nutrient_strains.php


For each gallon of juice/must you add 1 gm. yeast, 1.25 gm Go-Ferm and 17ml water and allow to hydrate.


The second product is used once the fermentation gets going. I keeps the yeast healthy and healthy yeast produce less unwanted byproducts. Here is info about Fermaid K:


http://www.sonic.net/~vinquiry/pdf/FermaidK.pdf


This has worked well for my wines so far so I decided to see if I could make some ice wine. Real ice wine is made by allowing the grapes toremain on the vine until freezing weather nearly freezes them solid. The grapes are harvested and pressed outdoors and a very small amount of high brix syrup is obtained. Needless to say, the small volume and high labor involved raise the price of the final product considerably. The juice is allowed to ferment to a certain level of residual sugar then it is stopped, usually with more cold, sulfite and filtering. Also, one shoots for a high acid content to balance the high residual sugar.


Enter Texas Ice Wine.


To make my ice wine, I started out with6 gallons of juice that I froze to 0 F in my temp controlled freezer. (pics will follow in a later thread) I drilled 1/2" holes in the bottoms of the frozen plastic jugs and placed them in a 10 gallon primary in the freezer and raised the temp up to 25 F. This resulted in a very concentrated juice/syrup dripping out the bottoms of the jugs. When the melting brought the SG down to 1.160, I discarded the remaining chunks of what was basically ice. (I said down because even at 0 F, there was syrup at the bottom of the jugs that was still in a liquid state whose SG I didn't attempt to measure)


Then, I brought the juice in the primary up to 55 F, added 50 ppm of sulfite and Fermaid Kand then prepared the yeast starter like you would with a stuck fermentation. After the yeast was hydrated with Go-Ferm, to this I added 250ml of the juice. After 12 hours, it was bubbling nicely. I repeated this procedure with 500ml then 1000ml of juice. I finally added this starterto the primary which was kept at 55 F. At a SG of 1.070, I racked to a clean carboy, adding 50 ppm sulfite and dropped the temp to 25 F to stop the fermentation. 


Just to let you know how vigorous the yeast was, after 2 days, I attempted to bring the wine up to cellar temp. which is 64 F and fermentation restarted, so it is under cold storage now for an extended time. I guess next time, I'll shoot for less vigor so I can shut it down more easily.


Finally, here is an article about various methods of yeast manipulation and fermentation progress in the American Journal of Enology and Viticulture:


http://www.ajevonline.org/cgi/content/abstract/55/4/363


If you have made it this far, thank your for your persistence.


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## grapeman

You are adventurous trying to make icewine in Texas. It can be really hard to totally stop a healthy yeast at such high sugar content. I don't see a mention to the yeast you used. Hopefully it is a really low alcohol tolerant yeast which aids in killing it. It's not enough to stop it, you need to kill it or filter it out after stopped with a commercial type filter. If I recall, you have a pretty nice looking filter. Have you tried to sterile filter it after stopping by freezing again?


Also if you don't have a sterile filter type setup(really small filters to strain out the yeast cells), you could stop by cilling like you did and add Potassium Sorbate at manufacturers specifications(often 1/2 tsp per gallon). That inhibits renewed fermentation like you experienced. 


Good luck stopping it. We are patiently waiting for the photos. Thank you for taking the time to share the experience.


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## texasermd

The yeast was Red Star Cote des Blancs which I chose for its recommended use in fruit and residual sugar wines. I will definitely start a thread on my progress at some point. Also, check out the article regarding another take on ice wine and note the recipe at the end:


http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3488/is_3_86/ai_n13503430/print


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## grapeman

The Cote des Blancs should work well for it. This last guy sure uses a lot of sulfates in his. That would aid in killing the yeast, but a lot more than I want in mine. The.45 micron filter he uses would probably qualify as sterile filtering and would certainly help keep it from refermenting.



Last week while I was rough pruning some St Pepin grapes, I found about 10 to 15 clusters that hadn't been ripe at picking and were left. It had frozen hard a number of times now. The grapes were shriveled a little but tested out in the neiborhood of 35 brix. Talk about sweet!. That was even without picking frozen and pressing. May be a good candidate for icewine in the future if I ever get my acre or so of St Pepin established.


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## ras1

Northern Winos said:


> I have been rehydrating my yeasts in warm water...I put a pinch [maybe less than 1/4 teaspoon] each of sugar and yeast nutrient....sometimes just the sugar....Should I not use that tiny bit of nutrient???




I used to do that too, until I read the warning on the Go-Ferm directions here:


http://www.lallemandwine.us/products/nutrient_strains.php


Note the part where it says "NEVER USE NUTRIENTS CONTAINING AMMONIA SALTS SUCH AS DAP DURING YEAST REHYDRATION"


Since I, like you, did not pour tons of it in with my re-hydration solution, I never saw any problems. 


Now that I see it recommended by the yeast makers...I follow their advise and just use Go-Ferm for re-hydration.

*Edited by: ras1 *


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## cowgirlallison

I am no expert but I have done ALOT of reading and from all I have read making a starter makes the most sense to me just because if the yeast is pre-started ahead of time it can influence the rate of fermentation as well. A quote from a wine source states..."Not only does pre-starting the yeast allow the yeast cells to hit the juice with their feet running, so to speak, but it also allows the yeast to multiply in number, ahead of time, which could contribute to having an explosive fermentation." I read where it is recommended to start your yeast 2-6 days before you are ready to ferment a juice b/c during this time the yeast is doing a mini fermentation...creating more yeast cells and becoming stronger. So this makes sense to me...not that sprinkling is not correct, I just have not had enough experience yet so I may try doing that on a batch to just see what happens. 

Here are 2 starter suggestions I found:

For 1 gallon

4oz water, 1tsp sugar, 1/4tsp nutrient, pinch of citric acid(I used acid blend b/c I did not have this), 1/4 tsp all purpose yeast

For 5 gallons

2 cups h2o, 2T sugar, 1/2 tsp nutrient, 1/4tsp citric acid or acid blend, full pkg of yeast

Mix all ingredients in glass pint jar, shake then cover with cloth or cover loosely. Do not seal. 

I retrieved this information from another site but on this site it tells you another way to do a starter

SO MUCH INFORMATION MY BRAIN IS OVERLOADED!



*Edited by: wade *


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## Wade E

As with most things in life there are many ways to do a job and do it right. Each 1 may take you throogh different steps and end up with the same results. Making a starter yeast is the best way of knowing that your yeast will do its job and knowing that yeast is good. Now that that is said I must admit that Im a sprinkler but also bear in mind that Ive been doing this for awhile and know when to panic if it has not started fermenting in a few days and always have more yeast packets handy and keep a good log of what I did, when i did it and the exact recipe so that next time if I want to tweak something to make it better I know where to start. Yeats starters are the safer way to ferment wine. If making Beer, I strongly recommend to make a yeast starter though and would not sprinkle on like I do my wine!!!!!!!!


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## Scott

Northern Winos said:


> I personally rehydrate my yeast...I know that others just sprinkle it on top of the must.
> 
> When I rehydrate I use a thermometer and wait for the water to be the temp listed on the package...100*-109*..I try for 100*-104* [just to be sure that I don't kill it with too hot temperature]Then I put in a few grains of sugar [use to do that making bread, it gives the yeast something to grow on] Now I started putting a few grains of yeast nutrient in as well....then I sprinkle the yeast on top of the water, put a piece of plastic wrap over the measuring cup and set a timer for 10 minutes....In that time period the yeast drops to the bottom, hits the sugar and energizer and started to grow almost instantly....when the time is up I pour it on top of the must...do not stir it...
> 
> My must will begin to ferment within hours....I never have to wonder ...WAS THE YEAST ANY GOOD????? I know it was.




NW, on a pear receipe I have it calls for rehydrating the yeast at least 2 hrs before pitching but than states that 6-8 hours is better, I like your 10 min one. 


That is alot of time difference what would be the pros and cons of the two different procedures if any?


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## rrussell

Mack, in your post you said the yeast starter had to be within 10C of the must when added. Did you mean 10 degrees fahrenheit?


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## AlFulchino

speaking of yeast....do any of you, who press grapes, ever let things go and rely on the naturally occuring yeasts?


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