Re: You're missing one crucial detail, though: what you want to survive is, while you're doing the cleaning/sanitizing, still sitting on the shelf (the previous starter) in another container. You're about to ***transfer the yeast***, and a nice, rich, tiny batch of beer (about 400 mL per starter in 500 mL flasks, and double that for 1000 mL flasks) to another container. Before you ***transfer over the yeast***, you want that container to be free (or as close as possible) of bacterial contaminants. I'll grant that my forte isn't brewing but I think it's more like I'm not explaining this very well ;-) Emphasis added above to help illustrate my point a bit better I hope :-) The batch YOU are putting into the bottle is already designed to grow, in a solution designed to ALLOW and ENCOURAGE growth- so yes, the bottle needs to be hyper sterile. What I put into a bottle is NOT designed to grow, and is already very, VERY hostile to anything it might encounter in the bottle so the sterility needs aren't quite the same. I have a much greater range of tolerance since I'm putting in a sterilizing solution (acid, natural anti- bacterial chiles, and scalding heat). You're putting in yeast and sugar :-) Never thought of it before, but does anyone know the pH of beer? -Jim C http://www.StepUpForCharity.org Mild to Wild(R)