Storing Yeast In A Vial

Is there any reason why I could not wash and sterilize the White Labs vials and reuse them by doing the typical wash followed by decanting a couple of jars to nearly fill a vial without much water?
Only one fridge and competing with fruit and vegetable co-op. Stupid rabbit food (grumbling as I walk away). She feels half a shelf of bottles (36) and a drawer in the fridge is plenty of room.

I re-use white-labs vials for storing yeast all the time. Been doing it for about 1.5 years and have yet to run into any problems.

Do it all the time, works fine. Just don't boil the caps, it is fine to boil the tubes. The little diaphram in the cap melts and deforms if you boil them, then the cap wont seal well. I just soak the caps in star san. Fill the tube with yeast and you are good to go.

second the no boiling the caps. I ruined mine when I did and was rather disappointed but otherwise I say go for it. I recently took the plunge into attempting to freeze yeast. If your interested in taking it a step further you could go that route. There's a great post somewhere on this forum if you search for it but it basically comes down to being super careful about sanitation, mixing a fourth water, a fourth glycerin and half yeast then cooling and freezing.

Do I need water in the vial too or will attempting to fill with yeast (no doubt with some water) do them well?
Would boiling the vials be better than just using Star San?

rodwha said:

Do I need water in the vial too or will attempting to fill with yeast (no doubt with some water) do them well?
Would boiling the vials be better than just using Star San?

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It is better to boil 20 minutes. (sterilizes and removes oxygen) Then take some of the boiled H20 and keep it in a steril container. Use it to top off your tube if you do not have enough yeast to fill. Do not add the H20 if you can fill with yeast and don't leave a lot of head space, (no oxygen) run pretty much right up to the top.

I had 5 or 6 jars of yeast in the fridge and my wife started to complain. Switched to freezing slants of yeast with glycerin and cut down on my storage space requirements by 80%. I also no longer feel the need to brew with every yeast within a 6-8 month time window anymore. Kinda nice.

I still maintain 6 house yeast strains and plan to add a couple more using new system.

I really want to wash and store some of the yeast back in the vials, how long will it keep in the fridge? Of course a starter would be required to be used since you're not saving your whole yeast cake correct?

I would use a starter to ensure the yeast are doing well and ready for action.
From what I (think) understand is that boiling the water releases the oxygen in the water so that the yeast will take a nap.
I'm not certain what the shelf life is, but months to possibly a year from what I've read. Mine won't be around that long before it gets used.

If you want to store long term in vials, check out the frozen yeast bank thread. Here's a link.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f13/guide-making-frozen-yeast-bank-35891/