I have a problem that's two sided and I haven't seen anything on the forums that really covers it.
I now have about a gallon and a half of spent lees from 2 or 3 beer batches, and 2 mead batches that was done a few weeks ago. I carefully washed and saved all of the lees into a 1 gallon jug and once in a while i throw some dextrose in there and it will actually ferment again.
My question is, what is this actually good for? Consensus on old posts is that reusing spent yeast is a no-no that could lead to off flavors. Originally I was putting all of this old yeast in a big fungi free-for-all-war and let the strongest yeast survive. It was most of a silly idea but I don't have the resources to actually do much with them short of throwing the whole mixture into my compost pile. Is there some recommended practice to handle the environmentally sound reuse of them?
I have a similar problem with corks. Consensus is that you shouldn't reuse old cork for a variety of reasons. Cork is biodegradable, and does that mean I can just use the old ones for composting, or is there some mechanism, organization, etc that takes these back for some kind of reuse? Is it just better to grind them down a bit and throw them in a compost pile and let nature take it's course?
As far as all the other consumables involved in beer and wine, bottle tops and champagne wire are easily recyclable, and bottles well... You can never have enough empty bottles.
I now have about a gallon and a half of spent lees from 2 or 3 beer batches, and 2 mead batches that was done a few weeks ago. I carefully washed and saved all of the lees into a 1 gallon jug and once in a while i throw some dextrose in there and it will actually ferment again.
My question is, what is this actually good for? Consensus on old posts is that reusing spent yeast is a no-no that could lead to off flavors. Originally I was putting all of this old yeast in a big fungi free-for-all-war and let the strongest yeast survive. It was most of a silly idea but I don't have the resources to actually do much with them short of throwing the whole mixture into my compost pile. Is there some recommended practice to handle the environmentally sound reuse of them?
I have a similar problem with corks. Consensus is that you shouldn't reuse old cork for a variety of reasons. Cork is biodegradable, and does that mean I can just use the old ones for composting, or is there some mechanism, organization, etc that takes these back for some kind of reuse? Is it just better to grind them down a bit and throw them in a compost pile and let nature take it's course?
As far as all the other consumables involved in beer and wine, bottle tops and champagne wire are easily recyclable, and bottles well... You can never have enough empty bottles.