Yeast Starter for Wine

Hello,

First post on the wine forum -- I'm a beer guy, but want to surprise the wifey with homemade wine.

I always make a yeast starter when brewing beer and have had much better tasting beer because of it -- I figure the same for wine.

How do I make a yeast starter for wine?

I have the California Trinity Wine kit.

Thanks for any help.

Rick

The simplest method I use is to mix 50/50 of the wine kit must with warm water and a little sugar and a pinch of nutrient. I then hydrate the yeast in this mixture for 4-8 hours depending on batch size and pitch. Try to keep temperatures of both starter and fermenter about the same. That's it, and I've never had a batch fail to start using this method though it has failed on a couple of stuck ferments due to other problems.

I'd be curious to see how other do their starters too.

Thanks cyberlord for the post.

Sounds pretty staightforward.

Rick