Best method for saving wort to be used as a starter?

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Anthony_Lopez

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I'm going to be brewing a recipe this friday and will end up with about half a gallon of excess wort that I'd like to save for yeast starters.

Whats the best method for storing it?
 
Hey In the general techniques forum there a sticky about washing yeast. Many brewers do this and store their yeast for a long time. Need to use a starter to wake the yeast back up. I have done this method but prefer to save the slurry unwashed. I sanitize pint mason jars, shake up the trub and pour into the jars to be stored in the keezer. If I use w/in a few weeks I don't even use a starter but if I keep it longer, I will use a starter. I use a single yeast culture for 5-8 batches of beer. It's easy and less work than washing the yeast. Charlie
 
I just started doing this. All I did was run the last half gallon off into a sanitized orange juice jug and stuck it in the fridge. The starters are doing their job.

The only thing I'm not sure of is how long wort will stay in the fridge before it's not worth using in a starter.
 
I just started doing this. All I did was run the last half gallon off into a sanitized orange juice jug and stuck it in the fridge. The starters are doing their job.

The only thing I'm not sure of is how long wort will stay in the fridge before it's not worth using in a starter.
From my own experience, if you wait longer than a month, month and a week, you're looking at skanky wort.
 
I crushed up Campden tablets, 1 per gallon, and tossed them into my wort. The Campden is a preservative used for stabilizing wine, and it will simply boil off as SO2 when you boil the wort for the starter.
 
Not sure if it's "THE BEST" but What I do...
Scoop some boiling wort into a mason jar...clean mason jar...JUST BEFORE I add the first hops...and cap imediately...it seals up tight when it cools...and I've kept them in the fridge for months.
 
Not sure if it's "THE BEST" but What I do...
Scoop some boiling wort into a mason jar...clean mason jar...JUST BEFORE I add the first hops...and cap imediately...it seals up tight when it cools...and I've kept them in the fridge for months.
Shoot, I just take the extra runoff from my MLT and put it into 1/2 or 1 gallon growlers.
 
i recently had about a gallon of 1.030+ extra wort, boiled on my stove for about 20 min with some old chinook hops I had in the freezer, filtered into sanitized canning jars (1/2 gallon ones that a local brewpub uses as growlers) and let sit in the sink overnight until the lid sealed...then threw in the fridge.
 
CAUTION Boiling is not enough, you really need to pressure can. Wort pH is not acidic enough, and the chance of developing a Clostridium Botulinum infection (botulism) is non-trivial.
Remember, your life is at stake on this.


Ref: Canning Wort

There you have it.
Sounds like I may not be doing the proper thing.

I do store in the fridge!...does anyone know if you'd notice a botulism smell?
(I know...it's what you'd call a leading question)
 
What I've done, which seems to work, is collect the last runnings (~0.5-1gal) while the boil is starting, cool, and throw in a ziploc freezer bag. I throw the bag in the fridge, then the freezer to freeze solid.

Come starter time weeks later, I just throw the wort-sicle into the boiler and melt then boil. Seems easy enough and works for me. Now, i'm unaware if i've contracted any types of diseases from this, though.
 
CAUTION Boiling is not enough, you really need to pressure can. Wort pH is not acidic enough, and the chance of developing a Clostridium Botulinum infection (botulism) is non-trivial.
Remember, your life is at stake on this.


Ref: Canning Wort

Edit Important........
Read this: NJDHSS, Communicable Disease Service: Foodborne botulism

This is why I don't store wort for starters. The ease of using DME for starters (100 g/l of DME=1.040 starter) outweighs the need for pressure-canning wort to make safe starters, at least in my mind.

We spend a lot of time assuring people that no pathogens can grow in beer, and it's true. Unfermented wort, however, is another story.
 
Hey In the general techniques forum there a sticky about washing yeast. Many brewers do this and store their yeast for a long time. Need to use a starter to wake the yeast back up. I have done this method but prefer to save the slurry unwashed. I sanitize pint mason jars, shake up the trub and pour into the jars to be stored in the keezer. If I use w/in a few weeks I don't even use a starter but if I keep it longer, I will use a starter. I use a single yeast culture for 5-8 batches of beer. It's easy and less work than washing the yeast. Charlie

Wort for starters, I thought you were talking about yeast:eek:, my bad. Never mind.
I don't save wort
 
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