Ever drink your starter?

[stonebrewer]

So I have spent about a week building up a huge starter for a clone of HoTD Adam I want to brew this week or next, time allowing. It is a big beer and requires a lot of Scotch Ale yeast. I have a 2 liter flask to build starters, so I have been pouring off some of the excess beer, and then dumping the yeast slurry into a large growler, rinse and repeat several times. The growler goes in the freezer, the flask gets a bit of juice from it and later I add some reconstituted DME. Well tonight when I popped the cap off the growler, it was very well carbonated. I poured of a liter or more into a jug I was going to pitch down the sink...then I saw how well carbonated it was and poured a glass...then another. It was a fine, light lager! Not setting the bar high, but better than Bud or similar beers. To think I have been dumping this down the drain for years! What a waste...that said, I probably will continue to dump most of the time as I always have kegs and kegs of beer. Just wondering if anyone else drinks their starters?

 

[VagueSkunk]

I havent gotten into making starters quite yet, but I drink yeast slurry from the bottom of a bottle or keg all the time. Call me weird but I kind of like the odd 'spiciness' of yeast slurry

 

[jerbrew]

I always take at list a good sip of it before pitching just in case something went wrong and it tastes like crap. I don't expect much but if something went wrong I know I'd rather taste it there than in my beer.

 

[beermanpete]

Yes. As jerbrew mentioned it helps detect an infection and prevent ruining your beer. Also, it is interesting to taste non-hopped "beer" now and then.

 

[kh54s10]

Yuck! It is un hopped beer brewed at terrible temperatures... I can't imagine it tastes good??? You must be doing something wrong...

I really don't understand your step up procedures either?? Are you putting the yeast in the freezer? If so and it is in there long enough to freeze you are killing the yeast you just propagated!!! Why was it carbonated? It should have been at least half done fermenting before you decant for the next step?

 

[stonebrewer]

Yuck! It is un hopped beer brewed at terrible temperatures... I can't imagine it tastes good??? You must be doing something wrong...

I really don't understand your step up procedures either?? Are you putting the yeast in the freezer? If so and it is in there long enough to freeze you are killing the yeast you just propagated!!! Why was it carbonated? It should have been at least half done fermenting before you decant for the next step?

Hehehe! The freezer is my fermentation chamber which is currently set to 36F to chill my kegs and yeast. I have always been of the opinion that the starter "beer" would be horrible, but hey it just wasn't! I mean, it wasn't Pils Urquell, but it wasn't half bad! So my process for harvesting, giving more details, is to add boiled and chilled DME liquor to my 2L flask, add yeast, grow on stir plate for 3-4 days depending on my schedule, place in a jug. Repeat, but decant the beer off the refrigerated/NOT frozen yeast to free up room for the next batch. So I end up with a thick slurry of yeast with tons of cells for a beer like Adam. Make more sense? And yes it is unhopped, but it really wasn't bad, and I expected to be horrid! Cheers!

 

[Black Island Brewer]

So, yes, I've tested my starter. When I'm making a 2-3L starter from canned wort, I taste it, as others have said, to make sure it's not infected. And then on some starters I bottle and drink the whole starter...like when I make a helles, then use the yeast to make a doppelbock!

 

[tjosborne]

Every time. I'd rather catch a potential infection before it starts or pitching it in my beer.

 

[passedpawn]

Nasty.

 

[IslandLizard]

Hey, @stonebrewer, funny that you brought that up!

I've been drinking starter beer for years. Some are better than others. You can really taste what the yeast brings to the party. I noticed too even after cold crashing, the starter beer is sometimes fairly well carbonated. I may drink a quart of it, as you said, it's like a light lager, or a light ale, or a light Belgian.

John Palmer wrote you could add a hop pellet or 2 to the starter. Maybe not primarily intended for flavor and drinking it, although he does mention it, but more for fighting off lacto.

Didn't you score one of those wonderful lab shakers from Keith? I've not used a stir plate since.

They take any size or shape jar, and you could place 2, perhaps 3, 2-liter flasks on them, or 4 64-oz pickle jars. The fill level needs to be kept a little lower so there is some headspace. I use a maximum of around 1600-1700ml to obtain an effective "swirl" without anything sloshing out. As long as you fill all of them to around the same mark they will synch. My wife calls them "hula dancers."

The best thing is you can fit 2 1-gallon jugs on them filled with 3.25 liter of wort. Maybe even a 3 gallon carboy...

I need to grow yeast for a couple batches of lagers. Instead of building huge starters I may ferment 2 smaller lagers first and use their yeast cakes. At least I can drink the small batches until the large ones are done.

 

[smurfjuice]

No ... :beard:

 

[buckinin]

I tried some of the beer I decanted off a starter a couple years ago after reading an earlier thread like this. It was terrible! (Not infected. Just unhopped and fermented without temp control at higher temp than I would use for a non-starter fermentation.)

Haven't tried it again.

 

[Torrefaction]

I'm drinking a starter right now
My starter is usually a mix of 2L of DME and 10-20% of my next beer (I have an odd yeast recuperation regimen, like the OP), which are usually super flavourful brews like stouts and IPAs. Therefore, there's some hop bitterness and flavour and a bit of a malt profile going on... cold crashed with a bit of carbonation, they are surprisingly tasty for something I used to pour down the sink without even thinking about it. I agree it helps you see what the yeast brings to the mix flavour and aroma wise.

 

[Rockit]

all the time

 

[pdxal]

Yes, usually if I make a larger starter. Why toss out 3L of beer from a 1 gallon starter that could be tasty?
I generally hop larger starters to about 10IBUs to make them drinkable and decant the beer into a 2L plastic bottle or two and add priming sugar to carbonate.

 

[day_trippr]

http://giphy.com/search/vomit

That'd be a "no"

 

[ong]

I've found lager starters can be really pretty good, even totally unhopped. Ale starters are usually full of esters and not very tasty.

 

[stonebrewer]

I've found lager starters can be really pretty good, even totally unhopped. Ale starters are usually full of esters and not very tasty.

Interesting! This was definitely treated like a lager starter and it was chilled over and over as I built up to my intended pitch rate. I had never tried to drink a starter before, because that just sounds gross! But as I built this up, from DME, over a week or so and was pouring off the "crap" beer, I smelled it and decided that this might not be that bad after all...so let's taste it. It was actually good and naysayers should try this before doubting it! That said, I am not sure I would do this again, but it was WAY better than expected! Cheers all!

 

[MaryB]

I have tasted it... nt what I would call good... bland, no hops, fermented warm...

 

[02RedWS6TA]

We drank the decanted portion of the starter last time I dumped it. Tasted like a pretty light beer. I drank a 5oz glass, wasn't good wasn't bad.

 

[Bosh]

Often mix it with juice or whatever else I have lying around to make minibatches in 2 liter bottles.