Washing a brett, lacto, etc yeast cake

milldoggy · 09-21-2011, 02:13 AM

All,
I have repitched on my yeast cake with brett, lacto, roselare blend and a bunch of other stuff. I wanted to wash it so I could share with some friend and reuse it. Will the bacteria and brett and all the goodies make it through the washing? I am using the simple homebrewer technique with using boiled chilled water to dilute, let sit and then decent to mason jars.

Thanks!

**BargainFittings** · 09-21-2011, 04:23 AM

The blend should be fine. Treat it like any saved yeast and use it soon.

If they pitch it on a finished batch of beer I imagine it will inoculate it. Might not be the same exact profile but it should be interesting.

Almighty · 09-21-2011, 04:04 PM

I'm not sure how necessary it is to wash the yeast. The other issue is that Brett and the lacto bacterias do not flocculate well. You will only be adding a small amount of yeast anyways and the small amount of autolysed yeast will just be used a carbon source for the Brett.

milldoggy · 09-21-2011, 05:51 PM

Thanks Guys.

Almighty, are you saying it is better to just store it unwashed? Just a jar of slurry? I have been pitching yeast when I pitch a new beer on an old yeast cake was thinking I would do the same with this sour blend.

Calder · 09-22-2011, 01:44 AM

If you want to wash it, probably best to do it with wort or beer and just let the dead cells and trub drop and keep the liquid.

Almighty · 09-22-2011, 05:57 PM

Yes, for a sour beer that will be aged for a while, I don't think there is any need to wash the yeast blend.

This obviously depends on the amount of trub that you have. But for me in my sour beers there is basically zero hop trub since I hardly use in the recipe. There will be some cold break and some dead yeast, but I think that is actually a good thing as it provides a carbon source for Brett to use over the long aging period.