real quick yeast washing question

neomantra · 03-20-2010, 08:09 PM

Here's my carboy about 10 minutes after adding the water and swirling:

The wiki says to not carry anything dark that separates out. Is that layer of stuff at the bottom all sediment that I should leave behind? I was expecting a layer of darker crud looking stuff, a lighter layer of (yeast?) stuff and then liquid. Instead I've just got this layer of light colored stuff and liquid. Do I only take the liquid?

**Pappers_** · 03-20-2010, 11:51 PM

The stuff that's settled out after about 20 minutes is mostly trub, the yeast is still mostly suspended in the water.

So, rack pr pour out some of the water/yeast mix from carboy to another (sanitized) jar and let it sit for another 20 minutes. More trub will settle out, then you can pour off the yeast/water mixture into your storage jars, being sure to fill them to the top, put the lids on and pop them in the fridge.

I'm sure there's more than one way to do this, but that's how I do it (i learned from Bernie Brewer's sticky thread here on yeast washing). In my experience, it works great!

neomantra · 03-21-2010, 03:11 PM

yeah I was following Bernie's guide as well. Due to the last minute nature of my question I had to just make a decision but fortunately did exactly as you suggested

had a look this morning and i've got a nice thin layer of yeast on the bottom of my jars. looks like everything is ok but I guess I'll find out for sure whenever I make a starter from one of them.

squeekysheep · 03-21-2010, 05:18 PM

the trick is to get quality not quantity