Starter Wort

[hockadays]

Hello folks,

A question on yeast starters, I normally use boiled dme for starters but have recently been saving some wort from prior batch and keeping in the freezer then using that to grow up yeast. I just had a batch go bad in the keg after racking that tastes of a wild yeast infection. I remembered back to the starter and when I thawed out the wort from the freezer and used half it was clear but the next day I went to add the remaining wort I noticed it had gone cloudy in the container so I thought it may be contaminated so I chucked it. The starter tasted fine prior to pitchng so I pitched it and ended up with infection. To make things worse I pitched a kolsch onto the yeast cake so am anticipating that this will go the same way. I'm thinking that next time I should reboil the wort I have in the freezer so to be sure it's sterile, what do you do?

hockadays

 

[raven19]

Boil the frozen starter, then cool again (in a sanitised fashion) prior to pitching yeast into it.

Boiling it will kill off any nasties.

I boil my starters, then cover my container in glad wrap with liberal use of metho spray. Then place in the sink with iced water. Pitch yeast once down to 20 - 30 deg.

 

[newguy]

If you have some small sealer jars (i.e. same as those used for jam or pickles) and a pressure cooker just fill the jars & pressure cook them for 10-15 minutes. I make starters from DME (no hops) in this manner and the longest I ever stored a jar before using it was about a year. No infections. No reboiling either. Having premade sterile starters on hand is very convenient.

 

[boingk]

I use small Erlenmeyer [sic] flasks, 300ml each, for my starters. Not big and only for ales (2L port bottle for lagers), they work a treat.

I only ever use the dried malt I get for starters. I store it in a jar, each one holds 500g so its a convenient size. Sanitise the flask/jar/whathaveyou, then dump in a few hundred mil of water and a few big teaspoons of LDME. Hasn't failed me yet.

...Just saw newguys idea - best bet is on that one, that rocks :beerbang:

- boingk

 

[hockadays]

Yeah I think reboil my be the go. Thanks for the replies