When it comes to freezers I lack common sense -- freezing wort

I brewed a batch on Memorial Day this week, and had the good sense to keep some of the excess sparge water to turn into future starters. I poured the extra wort into two mason jars, cooled for a while in the fridge, and then added the lids.

Ok so far.

Then I tossed them in my freezer, because I don't can. Well, I didn't account for the expanding liquid as it cooled. One mason jar completely shattered, making a mess. The other one developed a nice crack in the bottom.

I found out that frozen wort (pre-hops) is delicious. Unfortunately I lost two mason jars and some starter wort.


Today's lesson: Freeze wort without a lid and cover only once completely frozen.

If you think about it, you basically did can the wort.

Next time, just sanitize your mason jars and then pour the hot wort in there. Then set the lid on top and the vacuum formed by the cooling air will suck it in creating a tight seal. Then you have some nice canned wort for starters that you can presumably put any old where. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like you were only one step away.

If you plan on storing this wort at room temps, you should use a pressure canner to ensure botulism spores are killed.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f13/canning-starter-wort-110835/

Pour the wort into gallon sized ziplock bags and freeze them. That's what I do for my starters.

bknifefight said:

Pour the wort into gallon sized ziplock bags and freeze them. That's what I do for my starters.

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That seems like a much easier option.

passedpawn said:

If you plan on storing this wort at room temps, you should use a pressure canner to ensure botulism spores are killed.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f13/canning-starter-wort-110835/

Click to expand...

Yeah, botulism is bad, bad news. Somebody said it best in one of the canning threads -- that is the one thing in homebrewing that CAN kill you.