prrriiide
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for a starter?
Anyone?
Anyone?
Growler instead of Erlenmeyer flask
- Thread starter prrriiide
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Sure, lots of folks do that. Pretty much amy container can house a starter.
martinworswick
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would a 1 gallon carboy work on a stirplate or is the glass too thick?
prrriiide
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Growler it is, then FTW!!
I think that would depend on the strengths of the magnets and the stir plate motor.
bigbeergeek
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I used to do the growler (1/2 gallon) thing. Too small for most of the starters I do now (big ales, 10 gallon batches, rare lagers) so I'm using a one gallon Carlo Rossi bottle these days. Works great on my homemade stirplate and I can build some monsters in there! Plus, the bottle is cheaper that a growler and you get to drink horrible wine, too!
Clementine
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Is the bottom on them flat enough to spin a stir bar? I'm not familiar with bottle of plonk
Clem
prrriiide
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I figured a 1/2 gallon would be big enough for most 10 gallon batches, unless I'm doing a really big beer.
So that brings up another question...
If you're tossing a gallon of slurry into your fermenter, does that mean that you are actually fermenting 11 gallons and losing a gallon to trub? Or do you pitch a gallon of slurry into a little under 10 gallons of wort?
bigbeergeek
Well-Known Member
Slightly convex, but it doesn't inhibit the stirbar. Just be sure the bar doesn't have a "pivot ring" on it and you're good.
According to MrMalty.com, you'll need over a gallon of starter (4.39 liters) to pitch enough yeast for a 10 gallon 1.040 batch from a single vial of yeast -- I wouldn't call 1.040 a "big" beer. Plus, your starter needs headspace to contain the krausen. Hence, bigger is better.
As far as the question about starter volume and batch size, it all depends on if you decant the starter before pitching. Many brewers (myself included) will ferment out the starter, chill it to drop out the yeast, then pour off most of the (unpalatable) starter "beer" and pitch primarily yeast slurry. If you pitched an entire one gallon starter into 10 gallons of wort, you'd have 11 gallons of beer. You'll always have losses due to trub/heast/hops settling out in your process, which is why many of us formulate our batches to have a starting wort volume of 5.5 gallons, so we yield a full 5 gallons once the final product is in the keg or bottles.
prrriiide
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How much slurry do you wind up with after decanting? 1 quart or so? More?
Since starters involve not only the propagation of yeast, but also any undesired microbes as well (and there WILL be some unless you autoclave everything), I prefer to be as sanitary as possible with them. And an E-flask is ideal since I can boil the wort right in it and therefore disinfect the starter wort, starter vessel (flask), and even the barrier to further infection (foam stopper, in my case). Only way to do any better is to do all this under increased pressure to get temps up to the sterilization point.
Many people are happy saving a bit of money using their growlers, I'm sure. But considering that you're also propagating wild yeasts and bacteria at the same time (which is an even bigger issue with multi-step starters), the fairly small added cost makes it a compromise I'm not personally going to make. The ability to take it from a raging boil immediately into an icebath for cooling is always neat (and practically essential IMO for the really big starters), but their real purpose is for keeping things far more sanitary.
Many people are happy saving a bit of money using their growlers, I'm sure. But considering that you're also propagating wild yeasts and bacteria at the same time (which is an even bigger issue with multi-step starters), the fairly small added cost makes it a compromise I'm not personally going to make. The ability to take it from a raging boil immediately into an icebath for cooling is always neat (and practically essential IMO for the really big starters), but their real purpose is for keeping things far more sanitary.
stratslinger
Well-Known Member
I've only done a handful of starters thus far - I've used mostly dry yeast at my place, and my brewing buddy doesn't seem to think starters are necessary - but all of them have been done in a 1/2 gallon growler, including one I stepped up. Never had a problem. Of course, I also do not yet have a stir plate, so I couldn't tell you how well a stirbar would work with my growlers...
permo
Well-Known Member
I use 1 gallon carboys and I feel that it is not all that difficult to maintain a sterile environment in them. Clean and sanitize in the same manner as you would your fermenters.........the flasks are great but just because you are not boiling in the flask doesn not mean that your starters are full of wild yeast and bacteria.
MikeSteele
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I use a growler for starters but my biggest gripe is how dark they are! I don't know about most, but mine is pretty dark which makes it hard to see exactly how well the starter is doing. With an LED flashlight I can tell what's happening at the top and how much yeast is settled at the bottom so it does get the job done.
navmatt
Member
I've been using Quart and Half-Gallon canning jars for about a year now via this method: http://ahomebrewlog.blogspot.com/2010/06/canning-yeast-starter-wort.html
With pressure cooking you can be sure you are starting from a sanitized medium. The canning jars and lids are much less expensive than Erlenmeyer flasks and the bottom flat is enough not to inhibit a stir bar. When I am ready to begin a new starter I just place the canned starter wort in Star-san for a minute, remove, pop the top, dump in the yeast and sterilized stir bar, loosely cover with sterilized foil to keep out dust born microbes and put it on the stir plate. What used to be a couple hour process for boiling and cooling the wort for each starter is now about 2 hours every 3 months and about 10 minutes for each starter itself, mostly gathering and sanitizing everything.
With pressure cooking you can be sure you are starting from a sanitized medium. The canning jars and lids are much less expensive than Erlenmeyer flasks and the bottom flat is enough not to inhibit a stir bar. When I am ready to begin a new starter I just place the canned starter wort in Star-san for a minute, remove, pop the top, dump in the yeast and sterilized stir bar, loosely cover with sterilized foil to keep out dust born microbes and put it on the stir plate. What used to be a couple hour process for boiling and cooling the wort for each starter is now about 2 hours every 3 months and about 10 minutes for each starter itself, mostly gathering and sanitizing everything.
Clementine
Well-Known Member
+1 for canning
I have not tried stirring in the canning jar, I only have 2 x 1L E-flask and I put them in the pressure cooker with a foil lid then cool them and decant the canned wort into the pressure cooker.
I find is necessary as I get extra trub from what appears to be a second hot break when you can. Even if I have used pre-boiled wort it still make extra trub.
For my money the 38 dollars I spent on the pressure cooker it is worth every cent. Also once of the pasta sauce companies sells their sauce in Mason canning jars and I have reused the lids (apparently your not meant to) 5 times with no loss of seal. Also baby food jars are great for small starters.
Clem
I have not tried stirring in the canning jar, I only have 2 x 1L E-flask and I put them in the pressure cooker with a foil lid then cool them and decant the canned wort into the pressure cooker.
I find is necessary as I get extra trub from what appears to be a second hot break when you can. Even if I have used pre-boiled wort it still make extra trub.
For my money the 38 dollars I spent on the pressure cooker it is worth every cent. Also once of the pasta sauce companies sells their sauce in Mason canning jars and I have reused the lids (apparently your not meant to) 5 times with no loss of seal. Also baby food jars are great for small starters.
Clem
Canning jars sounds like a better idea than growlers, but end up not sterilizinb the stir-bar. Though I suppose you could if you really wanted to - either by having enough of them to store in each jar (making it all a bit pointless as it destroys the cost effectiveness), or simply cooking batches on demand (though the inability to rapidly cool is far from ideal.)
And of course, you're pretty limited with what you can use as the contamination barrier - likely relying on "sanitized" aluminum foil (which I've often heard of even fruit flies getting past), whereas with an E-flask, you can disinfect or even sterilize the foam stopper in place with the steam produced when boiling the wort.
So canning your wort vs simply boiling an E-flask, they are each more sanitary in certain aspects than the other. BUT if you use an E-flask with a pressure cooker, you can sterilize *literally* everything except the yeast itself!
Perhaps the bigger issue with your method, for me, is the inflexibility. I calculate precisely the volume of starter wort I need, which depends on both the OG of the beer I'm making, and the age/viability of the yeast I'm using (not to mention that with certain styles and recipes, I will deliberately overpitch or underpitch, but want to keep it as consistent and precise as possible. When you're using pre-cooked jars of wort, you limit yourself to the volumes of wort you have on hand. Sure, you might anticipate your recipes beforehand, but then it forces you to brew on a specific schedule if you want to be able to anticipate the yeast viability, and things don't always go as planned. Even if things do, you also lose the flexibility to do any recipe tweaking without compromising on a less-than-ideal starter size. Being able to have *precisely* the starter size I feel is required for any given batch (because one size DOES NOT fit all) is far more important to me than being able to cook up a few batches ahead of time. Especially when making a starter with an e-flask takes very little time at all. You can hit them with a ton of heat to get to a quick boil (some fermcap will take care of the need to hover over it the entire time), and then, after letting it go for a bit, taking it off the flame and immediately placing it straight into a sink full of ice water. The idea that it takes several hours is silly. I made a *5 LITER* starter in my kitchen and had it ready to pitch into in just over a half hour.
Which brings me to one more point... do they even make 5L canning jars? Would that even be feasible? My half-gal E-flask is my *small one*. For an upcoming beer I have (1.065 OG), the viability of the yeast is kind of low and so I had to do a stepped starter. Even though the beer isn't particularly huge and I DO have a stirplate, I had to do an initial step of ~1L, and a second step of ~5L, to get the cell count I need. This is just another POTENTIAL issue though - I really don't know how feasible/practical/economical/possible canning a 5L starter for use on a stirplate is, but even if it's simple, the flexibility and sanitary issues remain.
So... while I agree that canning is more attractive than using growlers, an E-flask when properly used to its fullest potential and capabilities is, without a doubt, the most ideal solution. There's a reason that labs use these things. But as a homebrewer, everybody has to make their own decision as to whether or not it's a smart way to allocate one's budget. I don't find them anywhere near prohibitively expensive, but at the same time I recognize that an E-flask large enough to be useful (2L+) isn't super-cheap, either. But for reasons stated above, and even just considering the amount of cash I've sunk into the rest of my brewing setup, spending the little bit extra in order to have all the benefits of an e-flask was just a no-brainer for me.
And of course, you're pretty limited with what you can use as the contamination barrier - likely relying on "sanitized" aluminum foil (which I've often heard of even fruit flies getting past), whereas with an E-flask, you can disinfect or even sterilize the foam stopper in place with the steam produced when boiling the wort.
So canning your wort vs simply boiling an E-flask, they are each more sanitary in certain aspects than the other. BUT if you use an E-flask with a pressure cooker, you can sterilize *literally* everything except the yeast itself!
Perhaps the bigger issue with your method, for me, is the inflexibility. I calculate precisely the volume of starter wort I need, which depends on both the OG of the beer I'm making, and the age/viability of the yeast I'm using (not to mention that with certain styles and recipes, I will deliberately overpitch or underpitch, but want to keep it as consistent and precise as possible. When you're using pre-cooked jars of wort, you limit yourself to the volumes of wort you have on hand. Sure, you might anticipate your recipes beforehand, but then it forces you to brew on a specific schedule if you want to be able to anticipate the yeast viability, and things don't always go as planned. Even if things do, you also lose the flexibility to do any recipe tweaking without compromising on a less-than-ideal starter size. Being able to have *precisely* the starter size I feel is required for any given batch (because one size DOES NOT fit all) is far more important to me than being able to cook up a few batches ahead of time. Especially when making a starter with an e-flask takes very little time at all. You can hit them with a ton of heat to get to a quick boil (some fermcap will take care of the need to hover over it the entire time), and then, after letting it go for a bit, taking it off the flame and immediately placing it straight into a sink full of ice water. The idea that it takes several hours is silly. I made a *5 LITER* starter in my kitchen and had it ready to pitch into in just over a half hour.
Which brings me to one more point... do they even make 5L canning jars? Would that even be feasible? My half-gal E-flask is my *small one*. For an upcoming beer I have (1.065 OG), the viability of the yeast is kind of low and so I had to do a stepped starter. Even though the beer isn't particularly huge and I DO have a stirplate, I had to do an initial step of ~1L, and a second step of ~5L, to get the cell count I need. This is just another POTENTIAL issue though - I really don't know how feasible/practical/economical/possible canning a 5L starter for use on a stirplate is, but even if it's simple, the flexibility and sanitary issues remain.
So... while I agree that canning is more attractive than using growlers, an E-flask when properly used to its fullest potential and capabilities is, without a doubt, the most ideal solution. There's a reason that labs use these things. But as a homebrewer, everybody has to make their own decision as to whether or not it's a smart way to allocate one's budget. I don't find them anywhere near prohibitively expensive, but at the same time I recognize that an E-flask large enough to be useful (2L+) isn't super-cheap, either. But for reasons stated above, and even just considering the amount of cash I've sunk into the rest of my brewing setup, spending the little bit extra in order to have all the benefits of an e-flask was just a no-brainer for me.
