Stupid yeast washing question.

So I would like to get into the cost saving practice of Yeast Washing, and I have a question that I think will probably be pretty self explanatory but i am going to ask it anyway.

When yeast washing, should I wait until the end of fermentation, i.e. at bottling, or is washing able to be accomplished after the primary, i.e. primary into secondary.

I see tons of threads on how to, and as i said this may be a silly question, but I'm a newb to it.

You do it whenever you're racking the beer off the main yeast cake. Whether that's to another fermenter (which is almost always unnecessary and more risk than reward, but the way), or to your bottling bucket or keg.

Ok thank you. So ill plan on from secondary to bottling bucket. Less crap in the cake then.

The "crap" wont hurt. You dont need to rinse the yeast either, it's a waste of time and effort. Just dump the yeast cake right into mason jars and stick them in the fridge. Some people just make bigger starters than they need and save some of that yeast, which is easy too.

Ok fair enough, i bought a case of mason jars so when i rack ill transfer the cake to that. This was my first time using a starter, that seemed to work out pretty good, they were getting pretty feisty inside of 18 hours. I guess some more research to figure out size of starter from the jars, storage life, etc.

exc503 said:

Ok thank you. So ill plan on from secondary to bottling bucket. Less crap in the cake then.

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No, your best option is to collect the yeast from the first fermenter while you're racking it to the second fermenter. If you wait and only collect the yeast when racking from the second fermenter to the bottling bucket, you'll be selecting the less flocculative yeast and subsequent brews will be more difficult to clear and may ferment more slowly.

You want the yeast from the first fermenter, because it's the more energetic, flocculative yeast.

Also, I wouldn't actually wash it with any water. Just store it with whatever beer you just made. It's a more protective environment for the yeast against other microbes. There's a thread with a ton of good info from EarlyAmateurZymurgist that I can dig up if it'd help. So it's more like Yeast Saving rather than Yeast Washing. It makes it easier too as you don't have to boil a bunch of water, and then let it cool.

Found it: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/cold-hard-truth-about-rinsing-yeast-boiled-water-451925/

kombat said:

No, your best option is to collect the yeast from the first fermenter while you're racking it to the second fermenter. If you wait and only collect the yeast when racking from the second fermenter to the bottling bucket, you'll be selecting the less flocculative yeast and subsequent brews will be more difficult to clear and may ferment more slowly.

You want the yeast from the first fermenter, because it's the more energetic, flocculative yeast.

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I don't agree with this. Probably doesn't matter much, but if you're collecting yeast that is in a cake at the bottom of the primary fermenter, this is spent yeast. If you're planning on using a secondary, then I would rack from primary to a secondary, wait a few days for suspended yeast to finish and fall-out of suspension and then collect it when you rack from secondary to bottling/kegging. Any yeast that transfers from primary to secondary was clearly still active (i.e. still in suspension).

I completely agree with the comment about not bothering with washing. It may even be bad for the yeast to store it under effectively distilled (boiled) water. Yeasties, like more cells, don't like hypoosmotic conditions. Just store under the beer it last brewed.

P

PLOVE said:

yeast that is in a cake at the bottom of the primary fermenter, this is spent yeast.

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What makes you think that?

Yeast can't "swim." Any yeast that are in suspension are only there because of eddy currents in the beer produced by CO2 effervescing out of solution. Yeast strains that are more flocculant clump together and ride those bubbles and currents more readily than less flocculant yeast, but that has nothing to do with whether or not they're still metabolizing sugars.

Just because a yeast cell may be on the bottom of the fermenter doesn't mean it isn't still working.

Some of what i read about washing was in some ways more of "distilling" the yeast, pulling yeast out of suspension with other trub materials, so that they do not affect successive beers. I'm not opposed to going a different route for what ever will yield the best results,

and by bringing to a concentrated yeast, would help to increase shelf life.

What is the shelf life then, and proper storage conditions of a "raw" yeast cake, with last batch over it?

And could you wash the yeast, with water, concentrate it down and then once in jars, top off jars with beer?

The environment that the yeast created for themselves is as ideal as it gets (pH levels for instance). Moving them to water is less ideal and could be detrimental. Actual yeast washing is done with acid in a lab. What homebrewers are calling washing is just rinsing, and somehow became a standard practice without anyone actually questioning whether it was a good idea or not. Now the evidence is stacked against doing it, although there will still be those that are unwilling to change their habits. Personally, I have yet to hear a compelling reason to rinse yeast, but have heard lots of reasons not to.

I also read of someone doing tests and the whole "wait 20 mins and all the trub will settle out" thing was actually removing a LOT of yeast along with it so was quite detrimental to the amount of yeast you got. If you wanted to concentrate the yeast at all you could do the same thing but instead of water just leave behind a bit of beer to swirl around. Pour into a jar, let it settle however much you want and then pour into a smaller jar.

The thread I linked to mentions about 1 month in the fridge as the lifespan of the yeast inside the beer it just brewed. If you want really long term yeast storage its time to look into slanting or freezing it.

In terms of harvesting without washing, does it matter if you have the hop particles as well as the cold break material?

I'm fermenting an English IPA. I didn't bother using a hop spider or a nylon bag for the hop additions. Everything went into primary. I'd like to save the yeast for a future ESB (not sure if it would just be re-pitching or harvest the yeast for use even later down the line). Will the presence of the hop materials matter (mostly as a function of off-flavors)?

I would be looking into freezeing as I don't get to brew as often as I would like. Ok it seems straightforward enough to just put it in A Mason jar and call it a day. Can't get much easier. As for which fermenter primary or secondary I have enough jars to do one from each.

My bigger concern now are things like hop residue and grain residue and adjuncts left in the years cake and it's affect on successive beers.

exc503 said:

I would be looking into freezeing as I don't get to brew as often as I would like. Ok it seems straightforward enough to just put it in A Mason jar and call it a day. Can't get much easier. As for which fermenter primary or secondary I have enough jars to do one from each.

My bigger concern now are things like hop residue and grain residue and adjuncts left in the years cake and it's affect on successive beers.

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Bump...this is my concern as well (mostly the hop residue).

mclamb6 said:

Bump...this is my concern as well (mostly the hop residue).

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It won't be as much. You may want to wash it with water if that is your concern. I would recommend to do a yeast starter no matter what. i have done both ways and never noticed any difference in taste with hops, etc.

Same here, I always make a starter with my saved yeast and I reuse part of my yeast cake for up to 10 subsequent batches without issues. When saving yeast from the first batch in a series, I try not to dry-hop that first one too much. When reusing a cake, I try to dump out most of the dry hop matter before swirling the yeast cake into a slurry. Lately though I've been going with the oversized starter method and just saving part of that.

Thank you for all of the info, got some more research to do on size, storage, shelf life, etc.

kombat said:

What makes you think that?

Yeast can't "swim." Any yeast that are in suspension are only there because of eddy currents in the beer produced by CO2 effervescing out of solution. Yeast strains that are more flocculant clump together and ride those bubbles and currents more readily than less flocculant yeast, but that has nothing to do with whether or not they're still metabolizing sugars.

Just because a yeast cell may be on the bottom of the fermenter doesn't mean it isn't still working.

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I agree. The middle layer of the yeast cake at the bottom is what you're after. The bottom is full of trub, dead yeast and the less flocculent. The top will be the less flocculent so you are after the healthy cells in the middle. The only time I use a secondary is when I'm adding fruit or aging for a long time like with a sour, otherwise I find it unnecessary and just another opportunity for contamination.
There are a couple good episodes of Brew Strong on the Brewing Network that covers yeast washing (rinsing) and re-pitching.