I almost don’t believe it. The starter I made last night seems to have worked. Or seems to be working, I should say. It hasn’t been pitched yet. Here’s what happened: I mashed for an hour in a coffee thermos. At the end of the hour, I removed the grain bag and poured the wort into a pot and boiled for 15 minutes. Then it cooled in an ice bath for a little while before being poured into a hyrdrometer sample tube and then into a beer bottle along with a few teaspoons of yeast. This was shaken vigorously for a while, covered in foil and left on the counter.

The Bad News: The mash temperature was down to 125F at the end of an hour. So the thermos wasn’t such a great insulator. Next time I think I’ll use a better thermos and fill it with boiling water to pre-heat it before mashing.

The Good News: I hit my target OG of 1.030. And the next morning there was a thin krausen. I didn’t expect to actually see activity in such a small starter, but there it was.

Every time I walked past it today I gave it a good shake. At around 8 pm I noticed that the krausen was gone and the foam created by shaking would disappear quickly so I figured fermentation was about done and stuck the bottle in the fridge. When I see a good layer of yeast on the bottom I’ll brew something for it.

It did occur to me, as I’m sure it occurred to you, that this is a lot of trouble to go through for an extremely small batch of beer. Why don’t I just use some DME (dried malt extract for those not in the know) instead of crushing and mashing such a small amount of grain? Do I even need a starter for a gallon or less of beer? In answer to the second question, probably not. But I want my beers to be the best they can be regardless of the number of bottles I get out of them. As to the first question, just like the rest of my brewing processes it’s a matter of space, not time. I already have the grains in the pantry so I figured I should use them. DME is just one more thing I’ll have to find space for. So it’s a mini-mini-mini mash for me. Maybe I could try to brew a single 12 ounce bottle of beer. That might be kind of cool. A one-off bottle. I don’t even know how I would measure out hops for that.

Anyway, the little starter worked well so far. Now before I forget, here are the answers to the trivia questions I posted last time. You should all leave comments and let me know how many you got right. I’m curious about the difficulty of these questions.

1. Who won the Florida GOP primary?
John McCain

2. This year marks the 100th anniversary of what team’s last World Series appearance?
Chicago Cubs

3. Musician Gordon Matthew Sumner is better known by what name?
Sting

4. Ruth Wakefield invented what mighty delicious baked good?
The chocolate chip or Tollhouse cookie

5. What does an anemometer measure?
Wind speed

6. Multiple Choice – Groundhog Day is coming up this weekend. In what year did Punxsatawney Phil make his first official appearance? A) 1870 B) 1887 C) 1932
B) 1887

7. RADAR is an acronym for what?
RAdio Detection And Ranging

8. Four sitting presidents have been assassinated in the history of the U.S. Name all four.
Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, and Kennedy

9. What was Neil Diamond’s first #1 record?
Cracklin’ Rosie

10. According to Forbes Magazine and The Chronicle of Higher Education, what is the most expensive 4-year university in the U.S.?
George Washington University ($38,240 in 07-08)