161 replies to this topic

[MtnBrewer]

I used to do it but I don't have a pressure cooker and was concerned about botulism. The way you do it is you make up about 3 gallons of 1.040 wort with DME (or LME if you prefer). Bring it to a light boil for 10-15 minutes and chill. Then you fill up your mason jars, sterilize them in the canner and seal. You can include just a little bit of hops (half oz. or so) if you want and you can add some yeast nutrient too. That gives you a dozen quart jars of starter wort. To use, just pop the seal, pour into your flask or whatever, add yeast and that's it. Generally I would use 2 qts. for an ale and 4 qts. for a lager.

[positiveContact]

I used to do it but I don't have a pressure cooker and was concerned about botulism. The way you do it is you make up about 3 gallons of 1.040 wort with DME (or LME if you prefer). Bring it to a light boil for 10-15 minutes and chill. Then you fill up your mason jars, sterilize them in the canner and seal. You can include just a little bit of hops (half oz. or so) if you want and you can add some yeast nutrient too. That gives you a dozen quart jars of starter wort. To use, just pop the seal, pour into your flask or whatever, add yeast and that's it. Generally I would use 2 qts. for an ale and 4 qts. for a lager.

so it sounds like a pressure cooker would be a good idea? how long did it take you to work through 3 gallons of wort? I assume that didn't all fit in the canner at once.

[Deerslyr]

A few months before I knew I was leaving Cali, a buddy and I used his pressure canner. We had plenty of 2 Row from a group buy that was pretty cheap. Cheaper than using DME. We mashed and sparged to 1.040. I don't recall how many cans. I think we had 12 each. Didn't boil it. Just put them directly into the cans and then into the pressure canner. The wort was boiled and sterile when done. When we moved, I gave him all the jars that had not been used. When I went to go make a starter, all I did was sanitize the lid before popping it open, put it in the flask and pitch the yeast. Couldn't be any simpler. We spent 2 or 3 hours canning. With the number of starters that you could make with that, you'd spend a lot more time making your starters individually from DME each time.

[MtnBrewer]

Pressure cooker is mandatory I found out. Wort is not acidic enough to prevent the formation of Clostridium botulinum and boiling (especially here at altitude) is not enough to kill the spores. So you have to pressure can them to be completely safe. There are different sized canners but you can assume that it will take you at least two batches to can them all.

[davelew]

Pressure cooker is mandatory I found out. Wort is not acidic enough to prevent the formation of Clostridium botulinum and boiling (especially here at altitude) is not enough to kill the spores. So you have to pressure can them to be completely safe. There are different sized canners but you can assume that it will take you at least two batches to can them all.

You can also Tyndallize the wort if you don;t have a pressure canner. Three boilings, spaced 24 hours apart, will kill Clostridium, because the spores will germinate in wort and are vulnerable for a time after germinating. The wort has to be kept a little warm, like 80 degrees, between boilings to make sure that all the viable spores germinate.Tyndallizing isn't popular these days, but it used to be pretty common and is safe if done correctly.

[SchwanzBrewer]

Why not do like deerslyr, but boil the wort to 1.040 and then keg it? put some CO2 on it. Would that be safe? Keep a keg of starter wort in the fridge.

[Joe]

I used to do it but I don't have a pressure cooker and was concerned about botulism. The way you do it is you make up about 3 gallons of 1.040 wort with DME (or LME if you prefer). Bring it to a light boil for 10-15 minutes and chill. Then you fill up your mason jars, sterilize them in the canner and seal. You can include just a little bit of hops (half oz. or so) if you want and you can add some yeast nutrient too. That gives you a dozen quart jars of starter wort. To use, just pop the seal, pour into your flask or whatever, add yeast and that's it. Generally I would use 2 qts. for an ale and 4 qts. for a lager.

Why would you need to chill the wort before canning? We can quite a bit (green beans, tomatoes, even meat from our chickens when we don't have the freezer space) and it always seems to work better if you add the stuff hot into the can.

[MtnBrewer]

Why not do like deerslyr, but boil the wort to 1.040 and then keg it? put some CO2 on it. Would that be safe? Keep a keg of starter wort in the fridge.

I don't think that would be any better than not using a pressure cooker.

Why would you need to chill the wort before canning? We can quite a bit (green beans, tomatoes, even meat from our chickens when we don't have the freezer space) and it always seems to work better if you add the stuff hot into the can.

Good question and now that you mention it, I'm not sure that I did chill it. As long as you're careful working with the hot wort, I don't see any need to do that either.

[djinkc]

Good question and now that you mention it, I'm not sure that I did chill it. As long as you're careful working with the hot wort, I don't see any need to do that either.

If you're canning DME wort just mix it with tap water and put it in the canner. No need to boil.

[Mindblock]

MtnBrewer is absolutely correct about the need for pressure canning the non-acidic wort?I am going to get back into this for the simple reason of time management. I can make three gallons of starters and can them, and I have only one mess to clean up, and a room temperature starter wort whenever I want it. Spray a little StarSan on the jar lid, pop it, and dump it into the Erlenmeyer.....WAY too simple.I do not believe that SchwanzBrewer's idea of wort in a keg would be safe, because anaerobic bacteria could grow quite nicely in that medium.If using DME (or LME) for canned starters, I believe that one could also simplify the process even more by adding your measured amount of extract and yeast nutrient to each canning jar along with some water, and letting the pressure canning process take care of your boiling for you.

[Joe]

This seems brilliant. 75% of the work making starters is chilling, and 95% of the worry is that you let it get infected while waiting for it to cool in the sink. Canning wort solves both of those problems. Also you could easily do this on the cheap by making a strong beer and taking the weaker second runnings for the starter wort.We have some two-quart mason jars that would be perfect for this. I have always heard of this but never gave it much thought. I'm definitely trying this soon!Any idea on weight and times required to kill botulism in 1.040 wort?

[Deerslyr]

Why not do like deerslyr, but boil the wort to 1.040 and then keg it? put some CO2 on it. Would that be safe? Keep a keg of starter wort in the fridge.

Interesting idea. I'm trying to think of the drawbacks to it, but am not really finding any other than having to utilize a keg. I was initially thinking that it might be a bad idea for long term storage because there would be no alcohol to kill anything, but then there are people who actually serve root beer out of the kegs. Are there bacteria problems with that? I mean, once you have it in the keg, presumably you have purged out the oxygen. I don't know... I think the safest thing is to Can and Sterilize the wort at the same time.

[Deerslyr]

This seems brilliant. 75% of the work making starters is chilling, and 95% of the worry is that you let it get infected while waiting for it to cool in the sink. Canning wort solves both of those problems. Also you could easily do this on the cheap by making a strong beer and taking the weaker second runnings for the starter wort.We have some two-quart mason jars that would be perfect for this. I have always heard of this but never gave it much thought. I'm definitely trying this soon!Any idea on weight and times required to kill botulism in 1.040 wort?

I want to say we did 15 pounds for 20 minutes. I can try and find out from my buddy how we did it (his canner), but I suspect someone else will pipe in before I get an answer. You could probably google it too. I saw some youtube vids that were consistent with what we did.

[MtnBrewer]

This seems brilliant. 75% of the work making starters is chilling, and 95% of the worry is that you let it get infected while waiting for it to cool in the sink. Canning wort solves both of those problems. Also you could easily do this on the cheap by making a strong beer and taking the weaker second runnings for the starter wort.We have some two-quart mason jars that would be perfect for this. I have always heard of this but never gave it much thought. I'm definitely trying this soon!Any idea on weight and times required to kill botulism in 1.040 wort?

I think 0% of the work is in chilling. Fill sink with cold water, put flask in sink, walk away. I don't see anything there to be worried about.To kill the spores, you need 3 minutes at 121°C.

Interesting idea. I'm trying to think of the drawbacks to it, but am not really finding any other than having to utilize a keg. I was initially thinking that it might be a bad idea for long term storage because there would be no alcohol to kill anything, but then there are people who actually serve root beer out of the kegs. Are there bacteria problems with that? I mean, once you have it in the keg, presumably you have purged out the oxygen. I don't know... I think the safest thing is to Can and Sterilize the wort at the same time.

The drawback is that you don't kill the spores.

[Joe]

Interesting idea. I'm trying to think of the drawbacks to it, but am not really finding any other than having to utilize a keg. I was initially thinking that it might be a bad idea for long term storage because there would be no alcohol to kill anything, but then there are people who actually serve root beer out of the kegs. Are there bacteria problems with that? I mean, once you have it in the keg, presumably you have purged out the oxygen. I don't know... I think the safest thing is to Can and Sterilize the wort at the same time.

Does the carbonic acid in carbonated liquids lower the PH to the point where it acts as a bacterial inhibitor?

[Joe]

I think 0% of the work is in chilling. Fill sink with cold water, put flask in sink, walk away. I don't see anything there to be worried about.

I could be doing something inefficiently then. It usually takes 2-3 sink refills of water to cool down 3 quarts. Plus can't put hot flask directly into cold water, have to be around to monitor. It's not a big deal, but compared to boiling the wort and pitching the yeast, it's always my least favorite activity. The fact that I'm usually doing this at 11:00 at night and I'm tired probably has something to do with it.

[Deerslyr]

The drawback is that you don't kill the spores.

But Schwanz was saying do a boil, as per normal. If I make Root Beer, I'm only boiling the water to dissolve the sugar before adding it to the keg with the flavoring. Just trying to figure out how this is really different. Know what I mean? It's still not something I would do though.

[Deerslyr]

Does the carbonic acid in carbonated liquids lower the PH to the point where it acts as a bacterial inhibitor?

I'm not scientifical enough to answer that. Mtn seems to be suggesting that the answer would be no. As stated before, it's an intersting theory, but when it comes to food safety, I'm not going to skirt the tried and true methods.

[SchwanzBrewer]

After reading the canning FAQ, why not can wort? I wish I had seen that earlier. Now I need to get a pressure cooker!

[davelew]

To kill the spores, you need 3 minutes at 121°C.

The alternative is to get the spores to germinate (by exposing them to something nutritious and moist, like wort) then boil again within 24 hours. Once the spores germinate, they can be killed by boiling, and the newly germinated botulism can't make new spores or botulism toxin for a few days.