White Labs Culture Tubes

If anyone is interested I found a source for the same culture tubes White Labs uses for their liquid yeast strains. The picture below shows the tube I bought on the left and a White Labs tube on the right.

The website where you can buy them is:

http://www.teachersource.com/product/preforms-and-caps/chemistry

Nice idea for yeast banking. A little more manageable then test tube.

Here is another source...
http://www.hometrainingtools.com/giant-test-tubes-30-pack/p/CE-TTBSB30/EID/12GPROD/

Just as a warning these are NOT autoclaveable / pressure cooker friendly. PET is not meant to be autoclaved only PP. For yeast washing these will be fine with star sanz but for longer term storage where you have to use a big starter their use gets iffy

What exactly do you mean "long term storage where a big starter is needed"?

Would these not work just fine for most users who want to wash and keep yeast for a few months, and then refresh their stock by either using or re-feeding? And would these not have roughly the same shelf life as washed yeast in a mason jar?

Also, how exactly would you manage to wrange the yeast into these? Would you have to wash them the regular way, and give the yeast time to settle out, then pour off the washed beer to concentrate the yeast in these vials? I am intrigued, but it seems like a lot of extra effort...

Mine will be here today. I've got several mason jars with yeast in them and here's my plan...
Fill tube with water
Pour water into empty mason jar and mark level
Decant washed yeast jars to same level as marked jar
Swirl yeast in jar
Pour into tube
Cap
Save fridge space

As far as not being autoclavable, I'm not terribly concerned. A spray of star san into the tube and caps will be fine.

It depends on how long you want to save the tubes. White labs has expert microbiologist with years of experience and according to Mr. Malty they still loose viability quickly. The yeast going into a white labs tube is the healthiest it can be and is the most prepared for long term storage. Washed yeast is far from this quality and will loose viability quicker. Therefore you will need to use a bigger starter if you plan to keep these in the fridge for 3+ months than what you would need for a 3 month old purchased vial. This runs the risk of introducing contamination. Now if you did step ups starting from a small starter to a bigger one you should be fine, but at that point you might as well just slant and store your yeast for a year.

As far as getting the yeast in there you would almost have to do what Demon is doing but then why not just keep the mason jars? If it is cause of space issues, that means your wanting to long term store these and I would say there are better options for this.

I would like to say... to each their own, their are multiple ways to skin a cat

ekjohns said:

It depends on how long you want to save the tubes. White labs has expert microbiologist with years of experience and according to Mr. Malty they still loose viability quickly.

Click to expand...

ekjohns said:

Just as a warning these are NOT autoclaveable / pressure cooker friendly. PET is not meant to be autoclaved only PP. For yeast washing these will be fine with star sanz but for longer term storage where you have to use a big starter their use gets iffy

Click to expand...

I've been refilling my White Labs vials for over a year now. I don't even wash the yeast (I only save yeast from low-hop batches) and I have a 100% success rate from my yeast bank. I made three starters last month from vials that were resealed 9-12 months ago and stored at 34°F, and surprisingly all three batches took off like normal.

Yeast is a little more resilient than most people on HBT will give them credit for.

Use as you like, but do not try boiling them either. Tried that and they turn sort of white colored.