Making a starter without DME

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jldc

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Since I've gone All-Grain I've been thinking about how to make a starter without DME - an All-Grain starter.

So, I'm thinking that if I just start out with an extra quart or two of wort at the beginning of my boil, I can freeze the extra (by taking it out before any hop additions). Then, a few days before my next brewday, I thaw this extra wort, boil it a little while and use it as the base for my starter. What do you think?

Surely, this has been done before, but I didn't find any info on a cursory search.
 
That's totally fine. I do that all the time. I always have 2-3 quarts left over after reaching my boil volume. I'll take that, split it into 1 qt. sizes, and then dump into a ziplock. Take that ziplock, and put another one over it. Double bag that $hit just in case! Come starter day, take the frozen quart and melt and then boil for like 15 minutes. There's your starter wort ready to go!
 
These are all great ideas.

I have also heard of taking a dutch oven and mashing a pound of grain in your oven at 150-155. You could use the paint strainer method for easy cleanup too.
 
I mashed 5 gallons of 2-row (OG = 1.040) once just for my starters. Boiled for 15min, cooled, then bottled in 22oz bombers.

Worked great for starter, but the bottles were gushers and a bit skunky for some reason. Dunno why. I would do it again, tho.
 
I have a few 1 qt bottles frozen in the freezer for this very purpose. I alway seem to have about 2 -3 quarts to much for my boil so I just transfer at least one into a 1 qt water bottles, label (wheat, porter, etc) and freeze. I have only done one starter as of yet, but it worked out well.
 
My last sparge I just add an extra gallon of water. I then collect a gallon of wort in a growler and use that for starters. Its already low gravity and to step it up I just boil it longer.
 
Since I don't always need starter wort I'll either push what is left in my tubing/pump out with boiling water into the fermenter, or into a ziplock and freeze it. I like to only save light worts for my starter, since I woudn't want to use a stout to make a starter for a light beer, I tend to decant anyway but I know some color would come through.
 
I put what's left after I whirlpool into a 2L beaker, cover and put it in the fridge. The next day I dump the clear wort off the top of the trub and freeze it.

I've been using chinese soup containers. I like the double ziplock idea better. Less freezer space.

B
 
These are great ideas. How about just diverting part of the finished boil to an Erlenmeyer Flask, diluting to the appropriate gravity, putting a stopper on it and throwing it in the freezer? Then, when it is time to brew again, you just have to warm it up from freezing to pitching temp. This idea would work particularly well for me because I just use starters to condition the yeast (to give them time to adjust to the wort and synthesize sterols in preparation for fermenation), not to increase yeast counts. So I want the starter wort to be as similar to the main wort as possible, to avoid introducing off flavors when pitching the entire starter.
 
I keep a set of 5-6 Qt jars of wort on the shelf for starters. If there's enough left over wort after a batch I'll use it, otherwise when I run out I do a quick 1/2 mash to make some. Then I can/jar it with the pressure cooker.

It's a little bit of work from time to time, but it's great to be able to pop the lid off of some sterile wort and get the starter going w/o any effort at all.
 
I use a small six-pack cooler and a paint strainer bag to do a teeny mash. 30 minutes is more time than you need for complete conversion with well modified malt, so it is really simple.

I don't have a huge pressure cooker or I'd can more wort... I save the canned wort for stepping slants where I need sterile wort. For those I do a 2 gal all grain batch in the oven and then use that to fill jars, then spend the afternoon running batch after batch through the pressure cooker since I can only do about 6 jars an hour.
 
I keep a set of 5-6 Qt jars of wort on the shelf for starters. If there's enough left over wort after a batch I'll use it, otherwise when I run out I do a quick 1/2 mash to make some. Then I can/jar it with the pressure cooker.

It's a little bit of work from time to time, but it's great to be able to pop the lid off of some sterile wort and get the starter going w/o any effort at all.

Sounds like an awesome idea and won't take over the freezer or get me yelled at by SWMBO.
 
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