New Brunswick Craft Brewers Association
Brewing => Technique => Topic started by: blisster on September 04, 2015, 11:47:58 AM
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What process does everyone use to make yeast starter wort?
I have been boiling DME each time I need a starter but that takes a time, planning, and DME isn't cheap. Planning is the biggest problem.. I don't always know 2 days in advance when I will brew or if I will be able to brew 2 days later.
I see they sell canned wort which eliminates the planning and time but it isn't any cheaper:
http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/fast-pitch-canned-wort-4-pack (http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/fast-pitch-canned-wort-4-pack)
Does anyone prepare a bunch of starter wort using a pressure cooker/canning jars? I'm wondering if it's worth the effort.
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I will do up a few gallons at a time and freeze it in quart jars. This works great, because I always have some on hand and usually keep one or two thawed in the fridge, and the rest frozen. Then I can brew on a whim, which is just when I have time.
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Same. I freeze mine. It's convenient. Well, when I remember to keep a jar in the fridge anyway.
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What I've also done is used wort. I have drawn about 2L, adjusted the SG with water accordingly and kept that frozen. Cheapest starter wort and you don't really miss half a gallon in the batch you're brewing.
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Do you boil the wort and store in sterile jars or are you doing the pressure cooker way?
Boiling wort and putting in sterile jars seems much less work but it has risks of having some bacteria that survives a regular boil (due to wort being a "low acid" liquid) from what I read: http://byo.com/malt/item/434-canning-yeast-starters (http://byo.com/malt/item/434-canning-yeast-starters)
I suspect the regular boil method would probably do the trick anyway (since it will eventually be fermented).
I'd like to be able to open a jar of wort and make a starter from it right away (without having to boil and let cool down again).
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I usually make a bit extra wort when I brew than I save some and then freeze it in a clean yogurt container. Whenever I need some starter I take it out boil it and adjust gravity acordinly. It seems to work out quite well I always have a bunch of 500g yogurt containers around and its pretty close if not exactly half a liter. So I can easily increase by half liter increments.
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Blisster I was wondering this the other day when I saw that canned wort in BYO. Might be a good club day to brew some starter wort and pressure can it. Get a few people contributing effort and ingredients.
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Blisster I was wondering this the other day when I saw that canned wort in BYO. Might be a good club day to brew some starter wort and pressure can it. Get a few people contributing effort and ingredients.
Great idea, I'd definitely go in on this!
Does anyone have a pressure cooker? I can volunteer my garage for this or maybe we can do some wort canning at an upcoming meeting?
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I think in the last year I've only made like 4-5 starters. I usually only make one when I use a 5-6 month+ old slurry or when starting from a slant or when doing a lager size starter.
What I've been doing now is delayed pitch. On brewday when the wort is chill, I transfer 1-1.5L to a flask, pitch yeast in flash and wait 6-8h then pitch it (or when I see activity, sometimes it start after a couple of hours)
What I like about this is I don't dilute my batch with a bland dme starter, save time and money and I don’t have to worry about starter boil over!! I don’t know how many times I had to freaking scrub that stove lol
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That's a great method, I will definitely be using that.
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I think in the last year I've only made like 4-5 starters. I usually only make one when I use a 5-6 month+ old slurry or when starting from a slant or when doing a lager size starter.
What I've been doing now is delayed pitch. On brewday when the wort is chill, I transfer 1-1.5L to a flask, pitch yeast in flash and wait 6-8h then pitch it (or when I see activity, sometimes it start after a couple of hours)
What I like about this is I don't dilute my batch with a bland dme starter, save time and money and I don’t have to worry about starter boil over!! I don’t know how many times I had to freaking scrub that stove lol
That is so simple, it almost makes too much sense!
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Bumping an old thread...
Has anyone ever canned wort before?
Would it better to boil the wort first to get rid of DMS? I suspect pressure cooking directly from the mash tun run-off would give wort with a strong DMS smell? I suppose that wouldn't matter much if you decant but that requires letting the starter sit/settle which takes extra steps/time which is what I'm trying to eliminate.
I also read that some people can wort with a high OG (1.070+) on purpose and dilute with bottled water to get the target 1.035-1.040 when making a starter. You would get twice as many starters out of the canned wort but I'm a bit hesitant to used bottled water in a starter?
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Bumping an old thread...
Has anyone ever canned wort before?
Would it better to boil the wort first to get rid of DMS? I suspect pressure cooking directly from the mash tun run-off would give wort with a strong DMS smell? I suppose that wouldn't matter much if you decant but that requires letting the starter sit/settle which takes extra steps/time which is what I'm trying to eliminate. It would eventually get boiled in the beer you are making the starter for anyway?
I also read that some people can wort with a high OG (1.070+) on purpose and dilute with bottled water to get the target 1.035-1.040 when making a starter. You would get twice as many starters out of the canned wort but I'm a bit hesitant to used bottled water in a starter?
I've frozen wort and used it again.
I can't recommend this yet because I'm currently dry hopping my first attempt at a beer using a vitality starter. I'll let you know if it works well. But have you tried it before? You obviously still have to do a starter but it's on brewday and as long as you're using a moderate OG beer it's supposed to be effective.
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Have you looked into these @blisster (http://nbcba.org/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=1931) ? Seems to simplify things if they work as advertised.
http://www.northernbrewer.com/fast-pitch-canned-wort-4-pack
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That's the end goal to get canned wort without paying $10 per starter.
Pierre, I'd say even a quick 15-30 minute boil would be sufficient on these. I think adding bottled water would be fine, I mean we're encouraging as much air to enter the starter as possible and not worried about what's in the air. Or is there another concern I'm missing?
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Have you looked into these @blisster (http://nbcba.org/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=1931) ? Seems to simplify things if they work as advertised.
http://www.northernbrewer.com/fast-pitch-canned-wort-4-pack
Yeah, I'd def get those if they were available locally and cheaper. With the exchange rate/shipping/duty would probably be around $20-25 CND.
I found a 22qt pressure cooker on kijiji so will give canning a shot... I just don't know what I'm doing, lol :cheers:
That's the end goal to get canned wort without paying $10 per starter.
Pierre, I'd say even a quick 15-30 minute boil would be sufficient on these. I think adding bottled water would be fine, I mean we're encouraging as much air to enter the starter as possible and not worried about what's in the air. Or is there another concern I'm missing?
I think I'd be OK with adding bottled water to a dilute a high gravity canned wort.. My concern is introducing contaminants but that risk would be quite low with bottled water I would think? And, like you said, encouraging air flow has that risk anyway.
I'm wondering if the boiling of the wort to get rid of DMS before pressure canning for 15 minutes would even be worth the trouble?
I'm up for canning some jars whenever works with you..
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If money is the issue and not time, you could always reboil the diluted canned wort before making the starter if you're concerned with possible contamination. There's definitely extra time involved with that though.
I know this isn't all that practical for most home brewers, but I've collected fresh yeast from a fermenter on brew day, and pitched it in the new batch. Fermentation has always taken off for me within an 8 hour period doing it this way. There is also more than enough yeast for a single batch, so you really don't have to be concerned with growing your yeast in the new batch via aeration. There's enough to kick off right away.
I've done this over 3 generations with great results. I can't seem to fit more than 3 consecutive batches in a row with my busy life, but you could technically do this for many many batches...like Picaroons, or the Pumphouse. Pumphouse pitches 20 generations before starting with fresh yeast again.
Anyway, this is a great way of ensuring your yeast is clean and healthy without canning, refridgerating, etc, and if you can do it over and over, you can take expensive liquid yeast and spread the cost over many batches.
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I think I'd be OK with adding bottled water to a dilute a high gravity canned wort.. My concern is introducing contaminants but that risk would be quite low with bottled water I would think? And, like you said, encouraging air flow has that risk anyway.
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What about adding sterile distilled water, its incredibly cheap at any pharmacy?
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yeah, I don't think there would be an issue there...give it a try and if you don't run into any issues, then add that to your routine :)