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help with yeast harvesting
well, I tried to harvest some yeast for the first time. After moving the beer from the primary to the bottling bucket, I swirled up the little bit remaining to break up the yeast cake and poured it into a sanitized beer bottle. After it sat in the fridge for a day the beer has separated to the top and the gunk is on the bottom. I'm just wondering if you could check out this picture of it and see if it looks good to you.
think this will be ok to use?
IMO looks like not enough liquid for a good separation. But I think it should still be good to use. If it were me, I'd want the next beer to be more flavorful than the previous beer, because there could be some hops debris and stuff in there. So if that yeast came from an IPA, I might not want to use it in a Cream Ale.
well I always use a nylon bag to hold the hops in, so there shouldn't be too much hop stuff in it. Also, this yeast is us-05 saved from a batch of Midwest's Light Aussie Ale, that ended up being not so light due to my ending up with less than 5 gallons. OG was 1.050, fg 1.016, and it tasted very good at bottling time, so hopefully the beer will be good. When I go to reuse this yeast do you think I have enough to just pitch that, or should I do a starter?
I like to take about a volume of the saved yeast equivalent to what I'd get in a WLP vial and make a starter form that as a matter of course. That way I know the yeast is viable and lively. That way you can get a couple uses from that amount of saved yeast form one batch.
Thats just me.
Otherwise, I looks like you might have enough to pitch directly if you use it soon (in a week). You start to lose viability as you store it. Just keep that in mind.
Ok, then I'll be doing a starter. So you're saying when I do my starter I can just use some of this, around as much as a white labs tube would hold? and then keep the rest of it in there and get several batches from this one bottle of yeast? I've heard you can keep the yeast for at least several months if you will be doing a starter, how long do you think the maximum time is you can save it for? Thanks for all the replies, you all have helped me out a bunch over the time I've been here.
If that's a normal sized beer bottle, I'd say the starter would use 1/3 to half of it. PLan your starter for a couple days in advance (2).
I don't know about saving yeast for several months this way though.
For my money the cost of fresh yeast is always cheaper than the hops and malt. So, I don't in general keep yeast too long when I do have it.
I think your best bet would be to pitch this whole bottle into one batch, if you don't brew frequently enough to try and use this one bottle a couple times with a starter.
Did you wash the yeast?
It's hard to tell from the picture if that is all yeast or trub.
I didn't wash it. Just poured from the carboy into the bottle. I was going to let it separate and pour off the top part into another bottle, but it all looks the same.
I usually leave a decent amount of liquid in the carboy and just swirl enough to get the top layer off the trub. Then I dump the slurry into a sanitized growler for a few minutes and the trub will sink out first. Then transfer to another sanitized growler and put it in the fridge to let the yeast settle out.
My guess would be that you have mostly trub and the little bit of liquid in the bottle isn't going to have that much yeast in it. I would put it back in the fridge and wait to see if a thin layer forms above the existing sediment, if so, that is all the yeast you will get from this. It's hard to tell for sure though without knowing how much trub you collected and seeing it in person.
I agree there's probably a lot of non-yeast in there. I would just pitch that whole thing. It's a bit of "seat of the pants" but should do fine. Then harvest as Given2Fly recommends next time. Google around and you can find good procedures.
I don't see any reason to keep any of that bottle of yeast for future use, because the beer you're about to make will produce another big clump of yeast you can use next time.
I make two beers on a brew day, so I like to save two jars worth of yeast from a given batch (which amounts to about two ounces of yeast in each jar) so I can use that yeast in both of my next beers if needed. But if I don't use it in the next batch, it's tossed, because there's fresher yeast coming up next.
Next time,get 3 or 4 mason jars half filled with pre-boiled water that in turn has been "canned".take jar 1 dump it in the carboy after siphoning of your beer.Swirl gently,pour contents of carboy into jar 1 and let sit 10-15 minutes.repeat this process dilluting your yeast sediment to half water half sediment or visually close,the contents should move very fluid like,but if it's more thick and creamy you need more water.By the end of the process you should have a 1-2 inch layer of almost pure white yeast and a very small layer of tannish trub underneath that.when it's all said and done store in a safe place in a fridge,when ready to use simply decant 95% of the liquid and swirl up the rest to break up the yeast cake and direct pitch or make into a starter.I've had yeast stay quite healthy for up to 5 months this way.Also If i am sure of the quality i will save some yeast pick up another smack pack and direct pitch my canned yeast and my smack pack together then harvest all that and do it again, and have had 6 gallons of ale fermenting at high krausen in 5-6 hours @ 62*f. but never reuse past 7th generation because then you are looking at strain mutation,usually produces lots more diacetyl
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