I was wondering about Pressure Canning wort to use in starters. My girlfriend has a very large stove-top canner and I would love to start using that a couple times a year rather than make a starter every time I’m about to brew.
So my questions are:
What pressure level should I maintain and for how long?
2. How full do I fill the jars?
3. Is there anything else you need to add other than boiled wort?
4. How long have you kept it for?
i think it depends on whether you are extract or all-grain brewing. it would be a hassle to mash just for a little wort to use as a starter, but if you are extract brewing, or don’t mind using extract for a little batch of wort, i’d boil it up fresh in a little pot. your wort, (extract or all-grain, though more so in all-grain,) has fresh nutrients and natural chemicals that yeast really get off on, and they will degrade – even minutely – with time, so why not boil it up fresh?
The PITA factor for me. By spending a couple of hours canning about 3-6 gallons worth of wort (and as noted, I make mine from DME), I can save myself from my self and in particular my lazy self. It makes it really hard to sell myself on avoiding a starter when all I have to do is sanitize a growler, sanitize a jar lid, pop the jar, pour and pitch. It takes 10 minutes - all but a minute of it waiting.
Plus the wort in the jars has one huge advantage over freshly boiled wort - its perfectly sterile.
No hassel at all, pressure can an entire batch of wort, just runoff and can, no need to boil, the canning process will take care of that. As far as longevity, maillard reactions will continue to slowly darken the wort over time even at room temp, but it will keep indefinitely so long as the seal is intact. I’ve kept it for several years without issue.
The OP specifically asked for alternatives “rather than make a starter every time I’m about to brew”. Plus there are lots of other advantages to canning starter wort.
No need to do the mix-boil-chill hassle every time you need a starter.
No need to keep DME around. When I used to handle that stuff, I could never avoid making a giant mess (plus it’s expensive).
If you’re culturing yeast, you’ve got “sterile” starter wort for the intial steps. Boiling only gets you “sanitized” starter wort.
Gives you more to do with your pressure canner
and it’s really not much hassle to mash up a small batch to get your wort collection started. You don’t even have to boil it - the pressure canner takes care of that. Once you’ve got some jars canned up, then it’s an easy thing to just bump your batch size up slightly each time you brew and can the extra for more starters.
I’ve messed around with growing some edible mushrooms and one thing to keep in mind is that a sterilized growth medium may not be as good as pasteurized growth medium unless you are able to maintain a completely sterile growth environment.
First because you are creating an ideal environment for other undesirable microorganisms that might outcompete other microorganisms that typically survive pasteurization.
Second because yeast might have some symbiosis with some of the microorganisms present like other types of fungii do (or so I have read).
Maybe these aren’t issues with yeast->beer, I’m just bringing them up for discussion.
A while back I was involved in an on-line discussion with some Australian folks about the necessity of pressure canning wort if you need long term storage. Some of them were saying that their no-chill process with the cube is also safe for long term wort storage. We never came to an agreement but my position is that the FDA says that foods with a pH above 5 (or even 4.5, I don’t remember) have to be pressure canned. That’s why we pressure can wort.
Now thinking about that, one could make the argument that if you acidify wort to a pH of 4.0 – 4.5 , with lactic acid for example, you should be able to can it w/o the use of a pressure cooker. I don’t think the lower pH would harm the yeast. It would also cut down on the formation of Maillard products which consume amino acids and have been reported as been a hindrance in fermentation.
One of the big (+) of pressure canning is that you don’t have to watch out for boil-overs when making starters. I usually boil a small amount of water in the starter flask to sanitize the flask, the foil and most importantly the stir bar. Mine has gotten old and may have cracks in which infections can hide. Heat will take care of that.
Kai, Kai, Kai - as much time as you spend researching and the magic acidified foods pH of 4.6 isn’t right there on the tip of your tongue? tisk tisk
Now here’s something to research, if you did add enough acid to take a roughly 5.4 pH wort to 4.0, how much acid would it take per quart to acidify and even more interesting how would that lowered pH effect the yeast in the starter as opposed to the 5.4 wort.
The idea of canning acidified word starts to intruige me. There might be a lot of brewers out there who would love to can wort but lack a pressure canner. I used to be one of them and pressure canners are not necessarily cheap. If we can develop safe but simple quidelines (i.e X ml 88% lactic acid to Y l of wort) and show that acidified wort works just as well in starters those brewers may be helped. I’m not sure if I would use other acids than lactic. Vinegar is more readily available but I’d be concerned with flavor that carries over into the beer. Phosporic acid may work. Muriatic acid is way to dangerous to recommend brewers to mess with it. In addition to that It may not be food grade.
An interesting read that suggests that the Clostridium botulinum spores are perhaps
not easily eliminated…and after reading the resulting intoxication symptoms
from exposure to this bacteria, I for one will choose to error on the side of
safety. This is NOT something to play around with IMO. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC202677/
The meat of that article to quote, "C. botulinum spores were consistently
found to germinate, grow, and produce toxin below pH 4.6. "
IMO, EXTREME caution is warranted when you play with this life force.
a noob question popped into my head: do you have to chill the starter wort before putting them in the mason jars and pressure canning? While I realize the jars can handle boiling temps, would the jars be able to handle the shock of putting near boiling wort in them?
Sorry - just trying to think this through. The thought of being able to just sanitize a flask and put in wort at any time, esp on a work night is enticing.
If you read the instructions closely on the step-by-step of pressure canning, most recommend that you put your empty jars in room temp water and bring that to a boil and then remove them and fill them with your hot stuff. I suppose that’s their way of avoiding the shock. That said, though, I’ve never done that as it seems too many extra steps and I’ve never had problems with thermal shock from mash temp wort.
