Beer Forum

hello, so after listening to a bunch of Jamil's shows i recently started becoming religious about using starters, and loved the results. but after making countless small starters a few days prior to brew day, I just brewed up 6 gallons of extract at 1040 and stored it in a bunch of growlers.

so here is my issue..... some of the growers ended up carbonated, pressurized???? this has happened to me 2 separate batches of starter. i dumped the first one, thinking maybe i had a few growlers that were not totally clean. i can tell you my second batch of starter wort i made sure each and every bottle was spotless. yet i got the same problem, not in every growler but 50%+

has this happened to any one else? should i dump this batch too? should i not try and store bulk wort for starters? i thought that that is what Jamil said he did???

any advice would be appreciated!! thanks!!

I've not heard of long term storage of wort in growlers before. Are you taking boiling hot wort from the kettle and putting it right in the growlers? I'd be afraid of cracking the growler. If you fill cold, I don't see how that would be possible keep the wort from getting infected. 50% actually sounds pretty good in those circumstances.

I've frozen 500ml "bricks" of wort in loaf pans before, then stored them in ziplock backs. That worked OK, but still required they be thawed and boiled and cooled to make a starter. Much easier to get a bunch of mason jars, a canner, and pressure can them. I'm told water bath canning works too, with a (slightly?) increased chance of botulism.

The growlers may have been completely clean but that doesn't mean that they were sanitized. I would almost guarantee that the growlers that are carb'd are infected. If the growlers had been kept cold it would have taken longer for the infection to take hold, but it would have still been there. Jamil pressure cans his wort so that it's sterile and will last a long time.

I'd be careful about storing wort that hasn't been properly canned (pressure cooked). There's a few good threads on here about it, and Bug has made a few good posts that people SHOULD read when planning to make and store starter wort.

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=20112&p=200364&hilit=canning+starter+wort#p200364

thanks for the feedback!!! guess i gotta go back to the batch by batch process or get a pressure canner!!! thanks so much!!