Yeast Washing for Highly Flocculant Strains

ISUBrew79 · 12-15-2009, 02:02 PM

I am planning on washing the WLP002 yeast from a batch of mild. I read through the yeast washing sticky, but didn't get much conclusive information about washing highly flocculant yeast strains like WLP002.

Mainly, I am wondering whether or not I will be able to get the WLP002 to suspend in the sterile water long enough to let the trub fall to the bottom. I know when I have made starters with WLP002 that this yeast tends to clump together, and once it does, it can be very difficult to homogenize.

Has anyone had success washing the WLP002 / Wyeast 1968 strain?

If anyone can chime in on this, it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

EvilGnome6 · 12-15-2009, 02:11 PM

Once you have the watered down trub/yeast in your big jar, do some experimenting with how long it takes for the trub to settle and see how much trub vs. yeast you have. First let it settle for a day or two to see the levels. Then shake it up again like mad man and see if it changes. I've been finding that the trub settles faster the second and third time around. Once you get a good idea of how much is trub there is and how long it takes to settle out, do it one last time and decant it at the right time. The proportion of yeast to trub and the time it takes varies wildly by strain and batch.

kanzimonson · 12-15-2009, 08:54 PM

I asked a very similar question and didn't get much of a response. I tried to rinse and save some 1968. When I rinse yeast, I try to get four containers of yeast. With 1056, I can get about 50ml of yeast slurry in the bottom of each. When I rinsed 1968, I got about 15ml in each.

The difficulty was all in the fact that the yeast puck on the bottom of the primary is so freakin thick! You can try to stir it around and break it up, but it doesn't seem to come apart very easily! Of course, this was with me trying to not aerate the cooled boiled-water too much. I'm sure I could've really gone at it, but this would have reduced the quality of the yeast I would end up saving.

So I don't really know what to tell you except stir, stir, stir to get those yeast broken up and in suspension.

Scimmia · 12-15-2009, 09:13 PM

I washed some 007 recently. I used cold water and did it in reverse. Most of the yeast flocculated almost immediately, leaving the trub suspended, which I poured off.

**Hammy71** · 12-15-2009, 10:25 PM

I've washed 002 several times with great results using the method from this site. 10 minutes seemed about the right amount of time (for me) to let most of the trub material settles and still get yeast. I have on average half to three-quarters of an inch of yeast in my mason jars when I'm done. Of course you really don't see that until after it's been in the fridge for a day or so.

**Palefire** · 12-16-2009, 12:09 AM

Was just planning on starting the exact same thread! Going to wash some 002 from the Moose Drool clone next week.

Subscribed.

ISUBrew79 · 12-16-2009, 02:19 AM

This evening, I went ahead and tried my hand at washing the WLP002 yeast cake from my mild. As I expected, the yeast was very chunky and wouldn't homogenize at all. I ended up mixing the yeast cake with some cold sterile water, shaking it a little, and letting it settle for a couple minutes. It was pretty obvious that the yeast was settling out very quickly. I ended up decanting off most of the liquid on top of the yeast. I poured in some more cold sterile water, shook it up again, and let it settle again. After about 5 minutes, I poured off the liquid on top again, and filled up two pint jars with the yeasty bottom layer.

This is what my jars look like after settling for about 30 minutes. I can start to see what I think is a darker trub/dead yeast layer forming a second layer on top of the yeast.

I have had good luck washing less flocculant yeasties, such as WLP001, Rogue Pacman, and Wyeast 2042. We'll see how this WLP002 turns out next time I brew an English beer.

**Palefire** · 12-16-2009, 02:59 AM

Cool, man, thanks for posting the results of your little experiment. Feel free to post more photos as the yeast settles!

**Palefire** · 01-16-2010, 12:15 AM

Just to update, I followed EvilGnome6's advice a few weeks ago and was able to wash kind of a buttload of WLP002. After pouring the water in the fermenter, stirring well, then pouring the top layer back into 2 big jars, I let them sit overnight. The next day I shook them up good again, and this time the trub settled much quicker. Waited one more day and did it again, and it settled even quicker. Then decanted into smaller jars.

The one weird thing was that the yeast was pretty brown, and a little hard to distinguish from the trub. This was only my 4th time washing yeast, but every other time (even when washing from a dark beer) the yeast has been pretty white. But after shaking a few times it was pretty easy to tell the fluffy yeast from the gritty trub.

Here's what I collected: that big layer at the bottom of the big jar is all yeast! I ended up splitting that into 2 smaller jars, too. I just used one of them on a bitter I brewed today - made a starter 2 days ago and it worked great.

EvilGnome6 · 01-16-2010, 01:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Palefire

Just to update, I followed EvilGnome6's advice a few weeks ago and was able to wash kind of a buttload of WLP002. After pouring the water in the fermenter, stirring well, then pouring the top layer back into 2 big jars, I let them sit overnight. The next day I shook them up good again, and this time the trub settled much quicker. Waited one more day and did it again, and it settled even quicker. Then decanted into smaller jars.

Glad to hear it worked!