Yeast Harvest Question

Hello,

I harvested 3 pint jars it WLP545 Belgium Strong Ale Yeast from a primary 4 days ago. I am not sure if I got the desired results...

Can you please take a look and see if this looks right? I expected to see a smaller, solid, compact yeast cake. This looks more like trub?

Looks like yeast and trub mixed together, as it would be if you just scooped it out of the fermenter and poured it into the jars (BTW...nothing wrong with that). What was your harvesting process?

Process - boiled one gallon of water, poured in primary. Swirled around and dumped contents into large glass jar to settle and separate. I ever really saw any good separation. So I just collected the top 75%.

Process was clean and sanitary. I'm brewing tomorrow and would like to utilize this yeast, how should I proceed with these?

Okay, you attempted yeast washing/rinsing. How long did you let it settle? Typically, you would let it settle for 15-20 minutes, then pour off the liquid to another vial. The yeast you want would've been suspended in the liquid while the heavier trub (and some yeast) would have settled out.

I'm sure you have viable yeast in there. Use mrmalty.com's pitching from slurry tab to figure out how much slurry you need. I always use the default settings when pitching straight slurry.

I let it settle for 30 minutes and at that point everything had pretty much settled, there wasn't anything really suspended

Should I combine all of this and try again to separate the trub from the yeast again?

I'd say you let it settle too long. The process can be a bit ambiguous, which why I only did that process a couple of times before I found a better way (hint: make a larger starter than needed and save a little of the slurry, which is already nice and clean, for a future starter. Lather, rinse, repeat ad infinitum).

Just pitch the slurry into your wort and it will be fine.

awvyen said:

Should I combine all of this and try again to separate the trub from the yeast again?

Click to expand...

No, just pitch the slurry as-is. What is the expected OG of your brew?

I should come in around 1.062-1.065 or higher

Okay, according to mrmalty for 5.0 gal of 1.065 wort and slurry that is about 10 days old, you would need about 133 ml of that thick slurry. That would be about 4.5 ounces, so a little more than 1/2 cup.

Don't fret. You are fine. Just decant and use the slurry from 1 jar to pitch next brew. As long as you were sanitary there is not too much else to worry about. The odds of picking up any off flavor from the previous hops or grain bill are almost non-existent.

Relax and brew on. Learn. Apply that lesson to next time. Repeat.

Should I go ahead and prepare a yeast starter as usual?

How old is the slurry? If less than 2-3 weeks, then no. Skip the starter and direct-pitch slurry per mrmalty.

If older than that, then yes, make a starter.

Will be 5 days old on brew day

How long was the batch you pulled it from in primary? I usually calculate the viability date as the day pitched + 1 week, since that is about when it all starts to settle out (give or take a few days).

Sounds like you should be fine to pitch it without a starter, though.