Canned wort

[alb]

http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/fast ... &FastPitch

Now, I'm unlikely to spend $$ on this but it got me thinking. If I boil up a large-ish batch of 1.040 wort (or 1.080 for dilution), put it in sanitized mason jars and put it in the keezer at 35 degrees, how long do you think it would be good? My own "instant" starter wort.

[Dawg LB Steve]

Just had similar discussion, I was thinking of mashing up some 2 row and doing a 1.5 g boil and putting into 1 L Mr B PET's and freeze, pull out and thaw as needed. Mashani has done that with his "wit juice".

[BigPapaG]

I don't think it would last as long as concentrated brewers wort (LME / HME) as these have has a lot of the water removed thereby concentrating the sugars which have natural antimicrobial properties.

Having said that, you should be able to get some number of weeks out of it.

--> Strike that, After rereading, I see you are talking 'canning' which would certainly last longer than simply refridgerated!

Maybe freezing it would be a thought?

My sister in law makes huge batches of pasta sauce and fills one gallon freezer bags up with it about 2/3 of the way and freezes it.

When she is ready to use it, she just peels the plastic off and dumps the still frozen sauce into the pot.

[LouieMacGoo]

Why couldn't you just take some cooled, un-hopped wort and put it into bottles and cap them? Then all you would have to do is pop the cap on a bottle and pour it into a flask or whatever you use to make your yeast started and your done. That would ecentially be the same thing as these cans.

[alb]

Why couldn't you just take some cooled, un-hopped wort and put it into bottles and cap them? Then all you would have to do is pop the cap on a bottle and pour it into a flask or whatever you use to make your yeast started and your done. That would ecentially be the same thing as these cans.

DOH! GREAT idea! I have a few empty bombers that would be perfect.

[BigPapaG]

Why couldn't you just take some cooled, un-hopped wort and put it into bottles and cap them? Then all you would have to do is pop the cap on a bottle and pour it into a flask or whatever you use to make your yeast started and your done. That would ecentially be the same thing as these cans.

DOH! GREAT idea! I have a few empty bombers that would be perfect.

Just take care.... Do you plan on pasturizing the wort?

If not, cooled, unhopped sweet wort in beer bottles would not have any protection from baddies that might have landed in it during the cooling and transfer phase... No hops or alcohol to insure the bad stuff doesn't grow...

I like the canning and or freezing idea better...

Just my two cents...

[mashani]

It is not safe to simply put cool wort into any kind of container that will then just sit capped at room temperature for an extended period of time. You have to do something else. Or you will have trouble. I don't care how good you think your sanitation is - it's not, once the wort is cool, all bets are off.

In my view the safe choices for storing wort are, in order of how much you can store in a single container are:

1) Canning it.

2) Freezing it. That's what I do.

3) Doing it as a no-chill the Aussie way. To do this you need to have an HDPE container that can handle boiling wort. You sanitize the container, then pour/syphon your boiling hot wort right into it immediately after flameout. You seal it. You shake it all around, turn it every which way, so the boiling wort touches every surface, in case any bugs fell in while you were filling it. And then you walk away and let it chill on its own.

The advantage of freezing or no chill is if you want to store more then a liter or so in a single container. It just depends on what you are doing. I have 1/2 gallon blocks of wort in my freezer right now (the "wit juice"). The aussie way in the right container, you can store a full 5 gallon batch of wort to use for brewing later. If you want.

[alb]

I don't have a pressure canner. For tomatoes which are acidic I just put them, still near-boiling, in a sanitized mason jar and seal it. As it cools it creates a vacuum and seals itself. They are shelf-stable for over a year.
Wort not being acidic I don't know if it would be quite the same, but putting it in the sanitized jars just off the boil should work I think. Especially kept at 35F. I hesitate to freeze it because then I have to either wait for it to thaw or heat it up and wait for it cool again and that's time off the clock when it could be stirring.

[BigPapaG]

I don't have a pressure canner. For tomatoes which are acidic I just put them, still near-boiling, in a sanitized mason jar and seal it. As it cools it creates a vacuum and seals itself. They are shelf-stable for over a year.
Wort not being acidic I don't know if it would be quite the same, but putting it in the sanitized jars just off the boil should work I think. Especially kept at 35F. I hesitate to freeze it because then I have to either wait for it to thaw or heat it up and wait for it cool again and that's time off the clock when it could be stirring.

Standard canning methods, as you have described, should work well as the process of heating the jars provides a degree of pasturization of the contents, as well as a vacuum seal...

Again, not sure of the shelf life for same, refrigerated obviously being longer than room temp...

But it should be similar to other sugar based canned products such as jams or jellies...

Whacha think Dave?

[LouieMacGoo]

What if you just threw a small amount of a low alpha hop in there just for the antibacterial properties?

[alb]

What if you just threw a small amount of a low alpha hop in there just for the antibacterial properties?

So it takes beer to make beer. Might be a good use of random leftover hops. But I wonder how much would be effective, without changing the flavor profile.

[LouieMacGoo]

If you keep it about 10 to 12 IBUs I think you would be good. Remember your only going to be adding a pint of this solution into a 5 gallon (or more) batch so it really shouldn't make a significant impact as long as you are keeping in pretty neutral.

[mashani]

This is *worst case* scenario, and it's unlikely to occur, but I am not convinced that there is not a chance if you are storing for a long time...

Until the yeast get to work, the worts PH is not acidic enough to suppress bugs. And of course there isn't any alcohol either. And the amount of sugar isn't high enough without a certain PH level. I'm fairly sure that the FDA would say that something of the sugar content and ph of starter wort needs to be pressure canned to be totally safe.

If it gets botulin toxin from being canned without being properly treated, then just using it cold out of the jar and pitching yeast to make a starter will not destroy the toxin. It will destroy the bacteria... but not the toxin that the bacteria could have produced in the anaerobic environment of the jar. Then you are dumping botulin toxin into your beer, where the fermentation will also not denature it. So you have beer with botulin toxin. That's not something I want.

That is totally solvable - but you need to boil it again for a while to denature the toxin.

So, if you are going to bring it back to a boil again, then let it cool, then pitch yeast, then feel free to can it however you want I guess. But if you want to just use it without boiling it again, pressure can it if you want to be 100% safe.

For the same reason, I think Aussie nochill cooling is safe in an HDPE container as is storage for days or weeks. But I'm not sure I'd trust storing it for months or years that way without bringing it back to a boil. But that defeats the purpose of nochill.

That's why I just freeze it.

I also do bring my frozen starter wort back to a boil and let it cool in the flask before pitching yeast. Just to make sure it's sterile at the time of pitching.

Your starter is not a place you want to screw around. Continuous aeration will grow plenty of other stuff besides your yeast. Until the yeast are actively fermenting the starter wort, they are not changing the PH and increasing the alcohol content enough to suppress the bugs. So bugs are happily growing as long as the yeast is happily growing. So they get a nice stepped up foothold in your beer too. The fermentation may or may not kill them depending on what they are. Even if it does, they could still have a flavor impact if quantity is stepped up by you in the starter.

For example, in my house, a non-sanitized starter is going to give me a mixed sacc/brett beer every time this time of year. Every time.

[BlackDuck]

I will chime in here. Mashani is absolutely right. You may remember a few months back about a botulism outbreak in a small town of Lancaster, Oh. It made most of the national news outlets. This was very close to me. It happened in the town where I work and my wife's grandparents and a co-worker were involved in that outbreak. It killed one person and made many others very ill. Many were hospitalized for a long time, including her Grandmother. The cause was due to improperly canned potatoes that were later used in a potato salad. Improper canning methods can and do have serious consequences. Please be careful. Again, Mashani is right, you don't want to mess around with botulin toxin.


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[John Sand]

I agree that it would be best to can it. I also think that any solution that requires boiling to sanitize= making new starter wort with extract. In fact, as canning requires boiling, it works out to near as much work. The advantage of canning would be that you could put aside multiple starter batches with one boil.
If you make poison beer, we'll miss you.