Using Leftover Wort From BK for Starters.

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HomeDrewBrew

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Hi All!.

Short and sweet can i make Starters from leftover wort from the Boil Kettle?.
I see alot of posts on leftover wort from Mash Tun but not from Boil Kettle.
Is this cause of the hop additions?
Thanks
 
Yes. I do it all the time. Some people freeze it. I put the leftovers in a mason jar in the fridge, then reboil when I want to use it as a starter. May not be best practice but I have let it go in the fridge for a couple of months with no noticeable infection.
 
Yes. Not a problem. Best to use it fresh as canning it is the best way to keep it sterile, but the extra boiling could increase the bitterness depending on your original hopping.
 
To sanitize the stored wort. Unfermented wort is a very nice home for bacteria, yeast, etc... Unless you are 100% sure of your sanitation, and outside a lab who can be, boiling again would eliminate the issue.
 
In one of his books Charlie P actually advises people to use well-hopped, low gravity wort for yeast starters. He recommends boiling bottles, sanitizing caps, and I think you're just supposed to use a heat-tolerant funnel to pour the hot wort into the boiled (and still hot) bottles and cap it right away, leaving a little more headspace than you normally would.

Store them in a fridge and when it comes time to use them, remove the cap, flame the opening, pour a little yeast in there, and use a small drilled stopper (#2?) to put an airlock on it. If you're not using the yeast right away, once airlock activity starts just carefully put it back in the fridge.

I don't know if this is exactly how Charlie P wrote it, and I don't know how good of a method this is, but it sounds ok to me. I'm thinking of doing something like this make pre-made starters (kind of like NB's fastpitch canned starter). Brew something in the 1.035 to 1.040 range (maybe the second part to an intentional parti-gyle batch), add a little yeast nutrient, hop it to about 25IBU, and bottle it up. I'd still want to re-boil it to make sure everything is ok, though.
 
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