doing a starter with wort from the intended beer

[monstersandpie]

ok so i screwed up.

the first time i'm trying a cybi recipe, and i don't have enough yeast on hand. i was going to do a starter with some canned starter wort, but since timewise i'd need to throw the whole starter into the beer, i was afraid of it affecting the flavor of the cloned beer.

then i remembered jamil saying that if your process is clean, you can cool a new batch of wort down overnight to pitching temps. i figured that if this much time without pitching won't hurt the wort, i ought to be able to pull off 2 liters of it for a starter while storing the rest in the fridge. i figure i'll pitch all of the starter into the rest of the wort after 12 or so hours with intermitent aeration.

i figured this was a better idea than pitching one vial when the pitching rate calculator recommended 2.

lemme know.

[andy77]

I wouldn't be afraid to do it if it was me. Only issue would be if you were brewing a really big beer, the high gravity wort would be hard on the yeast.

I said "hard on."

[monstersandpie]

right. i was brewing the cybi calico amber. overshot the gravity by 5 points, so i've got a 2L starter going with 1.060 wort. a little high but i figure not really deal breaking either.

[chefchris]

Yup, just got done making a real wort starter myself. I don't chill my beer (at least not as fast as possible) I put it in an HDPE sealed container and let it cool over night, then pitch the next day. Your boiling wort sanitizes your container, you can make a real wort starter, save time and water. Aussies have been doing it for years.

[Hogan]

Yup, just got done making a real wort starter myself. I don't chill my beer (at least not as fast as possible) I put it in an HDPE sealed container and let it cool over night, then pitch the next day. Your boiling wort sanitizes your container, you can make a real wort starter, save time and water. Aussies have been doing it for years.

Here's a link to the 'no chill method' on Aussie Home Brewers (AHB) forum down under. It is rather extensive. I started my brewing using this method but changed with the purchase of a heat exchanger. The method has heaps of followers here and DMS does not seem to be an issue - however there are die hards who swear you will die in your bed after drinking beer made by 'no chill'.

http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/i ... opic=23742

Cheers, Hoges.

[monstersandpie]

i wonder if the aussies are doing this with hoppy beers as well.

the calico amber has a decent ammount of late hops, so i threw the main carboy in the fridge, and kept the starter at the intended fermentation temp of 70F. shook intermitently for the 9 hours and then let it be overnight while i slept. i took the carboy out of the fridge (got to ~60F at the coldest) and let it come up to the ferm temp overnight as well. this morning the starter had a nice 3/4" kraeusen going. i aerated the carboy well, then swirled up the starter and added that in, foam and all.

probably not the best method for trying to match a CYBI, but 'ere we go!

btw- i do something similar to no chill when i'm canning starter wort. i've been running off the last of the liquor in the mash tun after my kettle is full. I usually wind up with over a gallon with a decent enough gravity for starters - even after the 78% effeciency that i typically get in the kettle. i boil the extra wort on the stove and sanitize enough bottles to hold it. then i lower the bottle into a container of water, and fill/cap with boiling wort. i let these air cool so they're sitting there smoking hot for some time. i ONLY use these when i have enough time for the starter to finish out completely and i can decant off all of the resulting beer - which is probably lousy with DMS.

[chefchris]

Yup, just got done making a real wort starter myself. I don't chill my beer (at least not as fast as possible) I put it in an HDPE sealed container and let it cool over night, then pitch the next day. Your boiling wort sanitizes your container, you can make a real wort starter, save time and water. Aussies have been doing it for years.

Here's a link to the 'no chill method' on Aussie Home Brewers (AHB) forum down under. It is rather extensive. I started my brewing using this method but changed with the purchase of a heat exchanger. The method has heaps of followers here and DMS does not seem to be an issue - however there are die hards who swear you will die in your bed after drinking beer made by 'no chill'.

http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/i ... opic=23742

Cheers, Hoges.

The biggest issue with this method is people making claims against it who have never tried it. "Oh you'll get DMS, Chill Haze then die from it." Well, I just did my 5th batch with this method and maybe it was just luck, but I woke up this morning to see another day. People believe what they read, even if it's from an outdated book from the 80's telling you to chill your wort as fast as humanily possible.

For me, chilling is an issue. I live in a apartment with no outside water source. On top of that my immersion chiller sucks balls, the 90F tap water certainly doesn't help. I bought a water fountain pump and had to run up and down the stairs to fill up buckets of water to pump through my chiller. Took over an hour to chill.

I save money on water and DME because of real wort starters, plus I don't have to buy a new chiller which I was planning on doing. When my boil's over, my brewday is over other than washing out the kettle.

I also only have room for one beer to be in the fermentation fridge at a time, I can store the wort as long as it takes for the beer in there to be done, then I just throw it in and pitch the yeast.

It's definatley not for everybody. If you have a awesome chiller, then there's no need to use this method really. For those of us that don't, this is an easy alternative without compromising the beer.



monstersandpie: You can still make hoppy beers with this method. Here's a chart someone at HBT put together. You assume an extra 20 minutes of utilization on every hop addition, so you adjust accordingly.

[Junket]

Hijacked Thread. There's another thread somewhere (might even be a stickie) about the aussie method.

There's another thread addressing the starter wort issue:
http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=15764&start=10

I like your title a hell of a lot better though. Would be nice if informative threads had better titles that would make searches easier.

Anyway, I have decided to try this method out too and will post my results on one of these threads.