So Christmas has come and gone, and in a scenario probably familiar to many of you, Ive ended up with about a cartons worth of assorted mega-swill that friends have generously left me after drinking some of my beer. Now, I have no real desire to partake in it, and it seems awfully wasteful to throw it out, so it is just basically taking up fridge space until someone comes along who would rather drink it than a house brew. But, in another scenario probably familiar to you all, there is never enough fridge space. The age old fridge dilemma.
But I was at a micro the other day, and speaking to a brewer there. And he said (amongst many other interesting things) something that piqued my interest, because while I wouldnt describe myself as inherently lazy, if there are good ways to cut down the time it takes for a brew, Im open to suggestions.
It involved yeast starters. Rather than boiling up malt to a nominated OG, cooling it, etc, said brewer just takes some cans of swill at correct pitching temps, pours them into flask/demi and pitches the yeast. His thoughts were that the swill is for all intents and purposes sterile by the time it comes out of the mega-breweries, so there should be no infection issues, and its pretty easy to work out what your OG is going to be.
And as we know from taste experience, there certainly arent any strong malt, hop or yeast flavours in the swill that are likely to overpower your brew
Anyway, I couldnt see any major flaws in the logic, and it seems like a good way to get rid of assorted swill. Im going to give it a bash anyway!
But I was at a micro the other day, and speaking to a brewer there. And he said (amongst many other interesting things) something that piqued my interest, because while I wouldnt describe myself as inherently lazy, if there are good ways to cut down the time it takes for a brew, Im open to suggestions.
It involved yeast starters. Rather than boiling up malt to a nominated OG, cooling it, etc, said brewer just takes some cans of swill at correct pitching temps, pours them into flask/demi and pitches the yeast. His thoughts were that the swill is for all intents and purposes sterile by the time it comes out of the mega-breweries, so there should be no infection issues, and its pretty easy to work out what your OG is going to be.
And as we know from taste experience, there certainly arent any strong malt, hop or yeast flavours in the swill that are likely to overpower your brew
Anyway, I couldnt see any major flaws in the logic, and it seems like a good way to get rid of assorted swill. Im going to give it a bash anyway!