BBL_Brewer

Recipes 

The white layer looks like yeast to me, not trub.

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Slots Down Brewery
Stick with the plan....not the sparge.

Never Ending Liquid Yeast - How to Farm Yeast and Freeze it.

Jeepaholic

Recipes 

I agree I just have never seen yeast settle faster than the trub. It's usually on top.

Cbaddad

Recipes 

Yeah, I was super confused myself when it happened to me. But if your water was real cold when you washed it, these highly flocculent strains drop right out. Wash it again and pour off the dark.

Satisfaction

Recipes 

You are not alone, I see the same thing when using this yeast. Instead of Wyeast, these pictures are from WLP530 which are purportedly the same yeast.

The small mason jar is the growth from the starter, notice no dark gel like substance. The larger jug is a harvest from a Belgian blond, there is quite a bit of the darker matter. I have repitched off this with no ill effects, this strain of 530 has been kicking around in my brew stable for 6ish generations and I would swear it produces better beer now.

I wish I could test stain the cells to find out what they are, my guess as others have pointed out, is that they are dead low flocculation yeast. The funny thing is this layer never fully compacts and stays very gel like. The big jug is what is left after washing the good yeast off of it.. it is about to get washed down the drain.

Jeepaholic

Recipes 

Thank you all for the help. I will chalk this one up to experience and keep on brewing. I will say I'm loving this yeast. I have pushed it to over 14% and it looks like it may drop the gravity some more.

Satisfaction

Recipes 

Dang, my handwriting looks atrocious.

I am a big fan of this yeast as well. I keep 500, 530 and 550 in the fridge at all times. If the beer goes above 8% I do not harvest the yeast from that batch, they deserve a rest after that workout.

Jeepaholic

Recipes 

I have only ever done one yeast washing and I don't think I will ever do it again. I plan to make large starters divide them up into containers with approximately 100 billion cells like a commercial style package and use those to make starters. when I get to the last one I start the process over again. That way I'm never dealing with stressed yeast or hops or anything else from the fermenter. It also seems like less chance for infection.

Leadgolem

Recipes 

It looks better then what's on a lot of my labels. I'm a fan of the blue painters tape labels too.

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