measuring yeast

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ColoradoHomebrew

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I am a new brewer (1.5 months) and for my last 4 recepies, I've washed and re-pitched my yeast using a starter. It is working very well, but I have been making a 500ml starter for 3 days and pitching it without thought to how to measure it. This weekend I want to brew two 5 gallon batches and split the yeast starter between the two (two different recepies). I starter earlier with the yeast starter on Monday. The problem is I don't know how to measure the yeast to know when I can brew the two batches. It is an ale yeast so I assume I have yeast on the top and some on the bottom. Any advice on this. Both batches this weekend will be 1.050 ish IG.

Starter.jpg
 
"For strong beers and barleywines, at least 1 cup of yeast slurry or 1 gallon of yeast starter should be pitched to ensure that there will be enough active yeast to finish the fermentation before they are overwhelmed by the rising alcohol level. For more moderate strength beers (1.050 gravity) a 1-1.5 quart starter is sufficient." (Palmer).

You can check the general guideline at
http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter6-5.html
 
I've read that but what I am looking for is what exactly am I measuring when you say a cup. Is yeast slurry suspended yeast? Is the middle section of my picture the slurry? What is the bottom called and the top?
 
Slurry is mostly yeast and little liquid. You get the slurry by chilling then decanting the liquid off the cake. The layers from bottom to top are: trub, yeast, beer/water. If you wash really well you will have little to no trub.

Jason
 

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