Yeast Starter & Storing Questions

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BeerClaw

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I have a few questions about yeast:

1: How exactly do I decant a starter or can I just dump the whole thing in the wort?

2: I'm making a few beers with this yeast (3787). Should I save some yeast from the starter to make another starter and then store it in the fridge until my next brew? Or should I wash yeast from the primary for my next brew?

3: How long can you store yeast in the fridge between brews?
 
zaireeka said:
I have a few questions about yeast:

1: How exactly do I decant a starter or can I just dump the whole thing in the wort?

2: I'm making a few beers with this yeast (3787). Should I save some yeast from the starter to make another starter and then store it in the fridge until my next brew? Or should I wash yeast from the primary for my next brew?

3: How long can you store yeast in the fridge between brews?
Click to expand...

To answer:
1. First cold crash the starter in the fridge for 12-24 hours. The yeast will settle and you decant all but a little bit of the liquid. Slurry it up and pitch

2. IMO you save some of the starter and then make new starters to get the cleanest,most viable yeast

3. For the starter you plan on using about a week, anything that is saved longer should be restarted. Yeast lose viability over time stored
 
Thanks for the info! I thought it would be a better idea to make another starter then wash yeast. I'd do a second 1L starter, frigid it and then make a larger starter with that when I need it.
 
Now that I have a stir-plate I've been thinking of doing this instead of harvesting:

Make larger starter than needed, save what I don't need for current beer in fridge. Next brew, make starter from saved slurry, larger than needed, save what don't need, etc. I might give it a try next brew.
 
tre9er said:
Now that I have a stir-plate I've been thinking of doing this instead of harvesting:

Make larger starter than needed, save what I don't need for current beer in fridge. Next brew, make starter from saved slurry, larger than needed, save what don't need, etc. I might give it a try next brew.
Click to expand...

I've done this now several times with 1056 which my somewhat go to yeast. I have some white labs vials the I saved and use them to store the slurry. I just pull a vial and make a new starter when ready to brew and it works great!
 
Top-cropping is intriguing, too, but the sanitation risks seem greater. I need more vials now. I rarely buy yeast...
 
tre9er said:
Top-cropping is intriguing, too, but the sanitation risks seem greater. I need more vials now. I rarely buy yeast...
Click to expand...

A friend of mine and I were just talking about this over the weekend. IMO there is just too much involved and risk of infection to really seem worthwhile for the scale I brew, not to mention the mess of actually doing it:fro:
 
duboman said:
A friend of mine and I were just talking about this over the weekend. IMO there is just too much involved and risk of infection to really seem worthwhile for the scale I brew, not to mention the mess of actually doing it:fro:
Click to expand...

Well, I thought about taking a stainless spoon and skimming the dirt into a bucket, then scooping the middle layer into a sanitized mason jar, adding a little distilled water and trying that. But it's an extra time to open the FV that I normally wouldn't (2-3 days after pitching). Of course, the amount of yeast proliferation and Co2 being expelled should deter many infections...

I swear I NEED to come up with new techniques all the time (I really don't...)
 
tre9er said:
Well, I thought about taking a stainless spoon and skimming the dirt into a bucket, then scooping the middle layer into a sanitized mason jar, adding a little distilled water and trying that. But it's an extra time to open the FV that I normally wouldn't (2-3 days after pitching). Of course, the amount of yeast proliferation and Co2 being expelled should deter many infections...

I swear I NEED to come up with new techniques all the time (I really don't...)
Click to expand...

Yeah, it sounds like the right way to go about it but then, in reality, how much viable yeast will actually be harvested and is it really worth the hassle? Since I started scamming some of my starter yeast and saving vials I've been pretty happy, it's a pretty simple process that I can Incorporated into my actual brew day right before pitching so everything is already at hand and sanitized. Kind of a no brainer I wish I thought of earlier:drunk:
 
True. I think I will start doing this. I might need to start asking for empty yeast-vial donations among homebrewers. Otherwise I'll just use mason jars.
 
tre9er said:
True. I think I will start doing this. I might need to start asking for empty yeast-vial donations among homebrewers. Otherwise I'll just use mason jars.
Click to expand...

The vials are great! If you pick one up that is new, you can use a sharpie to measure the volume of the actual yeast to get an approximate amount. After a couple of tries you can add just enough slurry to duplicate the volume and get a pretty good guess-timate of cells in the vial. They are also small and don't take up a lot of space
 
duboman said:
The vials are great! If you pick one up that is new, you can use a sharpie to measure the volume of the actual yeast to get an approximate amount. After a couple of tries you can add just enough slurry to duplicate the volume and get a pretty good guess-timate of cells in the vial. They are also small and don't take up a lot of space
Click to expand...

Less than the quart-sized jars full of slurry that I have in the fridge now! I just don't want to plop down $8-$10 for a bunch of vials just to start accumulating them. I might have like 2...I seriously have harvested so much yeast I think I've purchased one pack of S05 and maybe two other vials in the last 6-8 months.
 
tre9er said:
Less than the quart-sized jars full of slurry that I have in the fridge now! I just don't want to plop down $8-$10 for a bunch of vials just to start accumulating them. I might have like 2...I seriously have harvested so much yeast I think I've purchased one pack of S05 and maybe two other vials in the last 6-8 months.
Click to expand...

Wow! $8-10 per vial? Last time I actually bought a vial it was $6.00! I've got about a dozen vials each of my 3 most used strains and just keep recycling them. I scrounged a bunch from the guy that owns the LHBS. They do these demos all the time and he occasionally puts some aside for me. The down side is most of my brewer friends have figured me out and I now seem to be the one stop shop for the "oops I forgot my yeast" brewer:cross:
 
duboman said:
Wow! $8-10 per vial? Last time I actually bought a vial it was $6.00! I've got about a dozen vials each of my 3 most used strains and just keep recycling them. I scrounged a bunch from the guy that owns the LHBS. They do these demos all the time and he occasionally puts some aside for me. The down side is most of my brewer friends have figured me out and I now seem to be the one stop shop for the "oops I forgot my yeast" brewer:cross:
Click to expand...

Start charging! :D When I'm short on cash I WISH I could sell off 10# of grain or 3oz. of hops for just under what LHBS does...I know brewers, but they just don't come calling.

Yeah, it's about $8 a vial and more for certain strains. Once I get my WLP810, Chico, and WLP500's farmed into vials/jelly jars I'll have bought a vial of something else by then. Not sure what, though. Maybe an English strain or a "true" lager yeast...but I'm using the hell out of the SF strain and so far loving the results, although I do ferment it in the 50's and lager it.
 
tre9er said:
Start charging! :D When I'm short on cash I WISH I could sell off 10# of grain or 3oz. of hops for just under what LHBS does...I know brewers, but they just don't come calling.

Yeah, it's about $8 a vial and more for certain strains. Once I get my WLP810, Chico, and WLP500's farmed into vials/jelly jars I'll have bought a vial of something else by then. Not sure what, though. Maybe an English strain or a "true" lager yeast...but I'm using the hell out of the SF strain and so far loving the results, although I do ferment it in the 50's and lager it.
Click to expand...

I hear ya, I've got 1056, 1968 and 2112 and I'm starting to get into Belgians so I am experimenting with some of those to figure out which one I like to start saving.............at that I think we've done a good job of totally side tracking this thread, hopefully we generated some good ideas here-PM me if you want to carry on......:tank:
 
One more question, when should I cold crash the starter?

I started Saturday with 3L of wort and a smack pack of 3787. Not much happened until Monday morning when a 1/4" krausen formed. Today the krausen is still present. Can I put it in the fridge now or wait until the krausen falls?
 
zaireeka said:
One more question, when should I cold crash the starter?

I started Saturday with 3L of wort and a smack pack of 3787. Not much happened until Monday morning when a 1/4" krausen formed. Today the krausen is still present. Can I put it in the fridge now or wait until the krausen falls?
Click to expand...

Personally I'd wait, but you can take a gravity sample of a starter just like you do with a "real" beer. I mean, it IS beer...
 
I'll just wait it out, didn't know if it was better to crash when the yeast was active or not. Looks like fri or sat will be brew day which works out well. It will be my first time brewing a belgian, should be fun!
 
Following somebody else's advice I started making extra large starters and saving the excess. Seems to work great. My one pack of 1098 (British ale) is about to begin its third batch. Easy, cheap, and it works.

Pic of extra 1L saved for third batch. If I need to delay for a month ill decant and replace the "beer" with boiled water. That a lot of yeast.

image-3445757127.jpg
 
I use urine specimen cups to keep yeast. It looks like my fridge is full of piss through. The cups hold about 90ml, they're sterile, and have gradations on their side.

Worked for last 6 batches.
 
seatbelt123 said:
Following somebody else's advice I started making extra large starters and saving the excess. Seems to work great. My one pack of 1098 (British ale) is about to begin its third batch. Easy, cheap, and it works.

Pic of extra 1L saved for third batch. If I need to delay for a month ill decant and replace the "beer" with boiled water. That a lot of yeast.
Click to expand...

Looks like 50ML, right? Just enough to not need a starter if it's fresh and a 5g batch of mid-gravity ale. Once you hit a month stored you'd need to double it.
 
Try these, they're exactly what white labs uses. I have a ton of old white labs vials I use, but if you can split this with someone it might work for you. .90 cents a vial with shipping.
:mug:
 
gigs619 said:
Try these, they're exactly what white labs uses. I have a ton of old white labs vials I use, but if you can split this with someone it might work for you. .90 cents a vial with shipping.
:mug:
Click to expand...

I see no link...

FWIW I just orderd a case of 24 2oz. boston round bottles in brown today. They should hold about 200b yeast cells each, making them great to pull out and make a single starter for up to a few months. They were $11 shipped (Prime) on Amazon. Here's the link:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003G2ZX9W/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20
 
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