Clean and sanitize everything, make a starter wort around…say 1.035, boil it for around 20 minutes y’know to get rid of any nasties, pour hot wort into a flask or beaker, put in a stir-bar turn on the stirrer and cover, cool the wort to pitching temperature and then stir for 1 or 2 days, decant, swirl and pitch then Bob’s Your Uncle! This is the tried-and-true method when it comes to stir-plate yeast starters.
BUT there is an alternative or perhaps dare I say it, an even more efficient way of propagating your yeast starter. It goes by the name of ‘The Shaken, not Stirred’ or ‘James Bond’ method, if you will. But what exactly is the ‘Shaken, not stirred’ method? What equipment do I need and is it suitable for all beers? And where exactly did this idea come from? To put it simply, it is the practice of eliminating the use of a stir-plate, stir-bar, flask etc. and merely giving the yeast a shake once in a while.
Wait until high krausen and pitch! As for equipment, well for a start you won’t need a stir-plate LOL. Basically, the practice of doing a ‘shaken, not stirred’ yeast starter is to sanitize the wort starter by bring it to the boil for 15 minutes and then chill, during this time it is a good idea to sanitize the equipment you’ll be using (demijohn, flask, funnels etc.) when wort is cooled transfer into a vessel of choice, prepare your yeast, and instead of using a stir-plate and stir-bar simply shake the wort vigorously for approximately 1 minute, there’s should be around a 4:1 ratio between the size of your vessel and the starter wort volume, let it rest for a couple of minutes and then pitch at high krausen (which is generally between 12 and 18 hours later).
The genesis of the ‘shaken, not stirred method can be traced back to a guy by the name of Mark van Ditta. Mark advocates shaking the starter to the point where it is almost completely foam! Why? To quote Mark himself ‘I shared this method with the community because I felt that there was a need for a low-cost, low-tech, shear stress-free method for producing a healthy starter. I hope that people do not attempt to generalize the method in the way that many specific methods have been generalized by the community.
It usually works without fail if all of the conditions are met. He goes on to explain that the science behind doing this is the expansion into foam, this is because foam has a very high surface area. and gas dissolves into a liquid at the interface between the gas and the liquid. A liquid-gas foam composed of gas entrapped in very thin layers of liquid. Mark goes on further to explain ‘Here’s what I do know, brewing yeast cells only need three things to grow: carbon (sugar is carbon bound to water; hence, the term carbohydrate), space, and enough O2 to support cellular health.
Although it has to be said, ‘the shaken, not stirred’ method is far from the only way to prepare a yeast starter and many a beer has won competitions using the traditional stir-plate method, Mark has stated time and time again this method is not to replace but merely offer a low-tech, low-cost low-stress method of making a healthy yeast starter that performs as well, if not better than other methods.
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