Do you treat your starter liquor?

Get advice on making beer from raw ingredients (malt, hops, water and yeast)
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guypettigrew
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Do you treat your starter liquor?

Post by guypettigrew » Fri Apr 27, 2018 9:02 pm

Over the last few months I've begun making starters for my brews. It shortens the lag phase in the FV and gets visible signs of fermentation (bubbles out of the blow off tube) showing within a few hours. Must hugely reduce the chance of any infection getting a hold.

But the starter is made up in ordinary hard tap water.

Does anyone treat the water for their starter with AMS/CRS or anything else. Or do you just use raw tap water?

Guy

jaroporter
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Re: Do you treat your starter liquor?

Post by jaroporter » Fri Apr 27, 2018 9:12 pm

well i do 'cause i just nick some wort out of the boil for immediate use or to freeze for later.

the key question is; what are you making the starters out of?
dazzled, doused in gin..

guypettigrew
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Re: Do you treat your starter liquor?

Post by guypettigrew » Fri Apr 27, 2018 9:18 pm

Malt Miller sells very convenient 115g packs of light spray dried malt extract.

This makes a litre of 'wort' at about 1.040 SG. That's the starter!

Guy

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HTH1975
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Re: Do you treat your starter liquor?

Post by HTH1975 » Fri Apr 27, 2018 10:09 pm

I just use dried malt extract and boil water in the kettle first. Depending on how heavily treated your water is, this could be enough if it’s mostly chlorine. Chloramines however will need a campden tablet (1/4 in this kind of volume is way more than required).

I always taste my starter ‘beer’ - if it’s not drinkable at this stage it may well not make the best beer either. I’ve even started boiling hops when doing my starters to make this evaluation a bit easier.

Works for me.

chefgage
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Re: Do you treat your starter liquor?

Post by chefgage » Fri Apr 27, 2018 10:20 pm

For my starters i use tesco ashbeck water.

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Jocky
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Re: Do you treat your starter liquor?

Post by Jocky » Fri Apr 27, 2018 10:55 pm

Why would you need to treat it?

You're not mashing so don't need to get the pH right for that, or calcium in the boil, and the mineral contribution to the final beer is minimal too.
Ingredients: Water, Barley, Hops, Yeast, Seaweed, Blood, Sweat, The swim bladder of a sturgeon, My enemies tears, Scenes of mild peril, An otter's handbag and Riboflavin.

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Re: Do you treat your starter liquor?

Post by McMullan » Sat Apr 28, 2018 12:27 am

You need to treat your starter water with some yeast nutrients. I've noticed a little calcium, in my very soft tap water, helps too.

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Sadfield
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Re: Do you treat your starter liquor?

Post by Sadfield » Sat Apr 28, 2018 7:55 am

My tap water contains enough calcium, so just a touch of yeast nutrient and hop pellet to reduce boil over, which probably doesn't hurt in inhibiting some bacteria.

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guypettigrew
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Re: Do you treat your starter liquor?

Post by guypettigrew » Sun Apr 29, 2018 9:19 am

Thanks all.

Was looking to make sure I was creating the best possible conditions for the yeast starter. My water has 100ppm calcium, so that's OK. I add a bit of yeast nutrient to the water before it boils. Seems like nothing else needs to be done.

Guy

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