Tip: juice for making starters

[admin]

I did a brew yesterday. Fairly standard Bitter with about 4.3Kg of grain for a ~20L batch.

I had been using DME for making starters, so I decided this time I'd be smart. I left the mashtun tilted up at one end all night with a jug to catch the juice that was still left from the mash.

Well crappity smack me. This morning I had over 2L of 1.062 goodness. Of course diluted down to 1.040 or so that'll give me about 3L. So screw you DME!

(Anyone doing this, don't forget to boil the juice to sterilise it before making a starter)

[Ciderhead]

Ok I did this from the end of a pilsner brew with some lager malt so extra light and got three litres out a couple of weeks back, I froze it and defrosted Friday and made starter yesterday, however I noticed,
1) it didn't boil over or even attempt to come up the sides of the erlenmeyer
2) I got no crud or bubbly brown/black specky bits as I have done from DME.
I know it's ok as I had a sneaky taste before boiling, wondering will I ever buy light DME again or just mash light grains instead.
Is yeast nutrient appropriate or is that overkill?

[johnrm]

My tip for this is to put a litre into a freezer bag, sit it in a lunchbox and freeze it.
Once frozen, take out of the lunchbox.
You now have stackable blocks of wort.

[Ciderhead]

I used cleaned out plastic milk bottles, but thanks for the tip

[Ciderhead]

All my starters are now min 2 litres hence milk bottles

[Ciderhead]

I decant unless it's a lager

[Partridge9]

I have to say - DME is a bit of a pain and costly - so storing wort 'run off' or whatever its called - sounds like a great way to save some money and save a bit of time.

I do like the stackable blocks !

Minecraft with frozen wort - the kids will love it !

[Bazza]

Great suggestions there.

One thing I would add, though, is to not use wort from the mash tun if it's been lying any longer than 1 night. I tried this around 24 hours after a brew and the grain had already started to stink.

For the foreseeable future my brewing time is limited to weeknights after the kids go to bed. So I mash and sparge 1 night, then leave the wort sealed in the boiler for boiling/cooling/pitching the second night.

On the first night, I take about 1.5L from the boiler to make a starter for pitching the second night. I chuck the whole lot in because the starter has exactly the same grain profile as the main wort.

-Barry

[Padraic]

My tip for this is to put a litre into a freezer bag, sit it in a lunchbox and freeze it.
Once frozen, take out of the lunchbox.
You now have stackable blocks of wort.

That's a great idea! I think I'll have to start doing that!

I assume that the wort is taken just before the first hop addition? Or is it straight from the mash tun?