Yeast sediment...to keep or not to keep

I have a batch of Hefe I'm going to rack to the secondary this weekend. There is about 1 1/4 inches of sediment at the bottom. I'm still a novice partial extract brewer and I've never gone to the trouble of reusing my yeast "cake?".

Can anyone offer a quick lesson on what yeasts are worth keeping, how to harvest and store and how to determine how much to use and how to prepare for use in the next batch.

note - this current hefe is pretty "wheaty" with lots of particulants. I don't know if that makes Hefe trub as useful as others...

Thanks a ton.

Hey KalvinEddie,
I keep any yeast strain that I like the flavour profile, ester production, alcohol tolerance, attenuation, flocculation, etc. Here is a link to the Wyeast recommendation http://www.wyeastlab.com/hbrew/hbyewash.htm
There have been numerous posts on the forum about how people do it but most are fairly similar to this or at least resemble this wyeast protocol. Just think clean, clean, clean storage vessel.
Good luck and you'll save yourself about 6 bucks a batch.
Jeffrey

If you're making another batch of wheat beer, just rack the beer of the cake and pour in the new cooled wort. Just make sure to use a blow off tube because serious fermentation will start within an hour and probably blow out a regular air lock.

I wash and reuse, but if you're brewing another wheat by all means dump it on the yeast cake.