Wort in the compost heap

[M.Clark]

I have a friend who seems to always be brewing something new and lives on the next block over. He is always brining over the spent grain (is that wort?) for me to use in my compost bin. The first batch got a little too hot and killed all the worms. Since then I have been adding more browns and stirring the pile more. It has been awesome. I did not add it to my veggies yet, but the other plants took off with the compost!

[toxcrusadr]

I only brew occasionally, maybe a batch or two per year, because I've moved over into winemaking too. Definitely a moneysaver if you brew using the same yeast type over and over. Just make sure you have a good sterile technique. If anything bad gets going in that culture, it can ruin the next batch too until you catch on. Every time you expose it to the environment there is a chance of contamination with wild yeast and bacteria. Just my two cents - it may work great for you practically indefinitely.

[DoubleDogFarm]

Thanks Tox and Brew,

We try to be sterile were needed. We use Star San and PBW.



Eric

[brewboy19]

Good stuff. I just use bleach water. I make different types all the times so its harder for me to save and use as I jump from lager to ale etc... and need to use different yeast accordingly. Mostly my winter hobby till springtime, but this year I'm planting hops so I may have to make a fresh summer brew.

[toxcrusadr]

I happen to have a hop vine that does very well. Only problem is trying to figure out how much to use. Commercial dried hops with a tested HBU value is easy, but what do you do with fresh non-dehydrated hops and no HBU test? Straying off topic a bit...but I do compost the hop vine every fall when it dies to the ground.

[brewboy19]

you have to do trial and error basically. You can get some info from bigger growers but you can never get exact especially with an heirloom strain without spending a lot of money on testing devices. most people I have talked to just try it and adjust and make 1 gallon batches vs 5 gallon. Like they say om the home brew forum : RDWHAHB (relax don't worry have a home brew).

[lorax]

Speaking as a longtime proponent of fresh-hopping and alternative fresh bittering agents, after about 2-3 batches you'll get a good idea of what your hops will do Alpha-wise - until then, it's trial and error. After a few gallon batches, you'll be able to scale up to 5s without losing the effect.

I've found that fresh heads are slightly stronger ounce for ounce than whole-head dried but weaker than pellet, simply because none of the volatile oils are lost to the dehydration process (and pellet hops are more concentrated due to the process used to make them).