Fire_travels
Well-Known Member
well done!!! this process has been bugging me for a while!!!
Speaking of smells and tastes, does anyone want to take a shot at answering my question about sterilized, though somewhat tomato-y smelling salsa jars for yeast washing? Will the starter smell like a TexMex restaurant?Bernie Brewer said:Should be fine. If the beer smells and tastes good when you rack it, wash away.
Kayos said:2 ?'s
1. The last pic has a jar with the yeast all at the bottom. Can I just get rid of all the other liquid on the top and store in a smaller container like a White Labs vial or even baby food jars? 5 mason jars is a bit much to keep in my fridge if there are a few types of yeasts in there.
2. Is one jar good for a 5g batch, or do you need all 5 jars?
eingutesbier said:Speaking of smells and tastes, does anyone want to take a shot at answering my question about sterilized, though somewhat tomato-y smelling salsa jars for yeast washing? Will the starter smell like a TexMex restaurant?
EinGutesBier said:Speaking of smells and tastes, does anyone want to take a shot at answering my question about sterilized, though somewhat tomato-y smelling salsa jars for yeast washing? Will the starter smell like a TexMex restaurant?
oguss0311 said:Does anyone know what might have happened with Explosivebeers yeast? I too would like to know. The only thing that I can think of is that the beer he had was not done fermenting (or as he suspects- came into contact with more sugar).....
ExplosiveBeer- How did things ultimately turn out? Did you use mason jars or something else? (Mason jars are capable of letting overpressure out- so long as they are not too tight)
SuperiorBrew said:Did you use sterilized water to add to wash it with? If so you may need to use more or wash it twice next time. You don't want bottle bombs in your fridge. Cap them with tinfoil for a few days and if you don't open up the fridge to a mess on day they should be good to cap.
wedge421 said:Ive got to throw my question into the mix. The process is crystal clear thanks for all the pics and explanations!!! My question is that if I used say a Wyeast Liquid starter slap pack for a 5gallon extract batch. Once I clean that yeast how many 5 gallon batches will I get out of that cleaned yeast that were harvested from the extract?
Kayos said:Minimum 5.
Bernie Brewer said:I read somewhere that you should only propagate yeast for four generations. Don't jump on me here, I know some people pay no attention to that, but it's what I read.
Ok, let's say you buy a pack of yeast and make a batch of beer. That's one generation. You wash your yeast and collect four jars of yeast. You could do more, or less, I'm just using four as an example. You make four starters and four batches of beer out of those four jars. That's generation 2. You wash your yeast from the last jar and collect four more jars/batches. That's generation 3. Add four more for generation 4 and you have a total of thirteen batches of beer from the original pack. So that's potentially 65 gallon of beer from one pack of yeast. Or 130 gallons if you're like me and brew mainly ten gallon batches. Of course that's assuming you brew with all those saved yeasts before they go bad; they don't last forever.
I'm no expert, but I'd say wash it SOON! I tried the same thing, but I siphoned all the beer off, then added 1/2" of boiled and cooled water to cover the cake. I air locked it, and left it for about 3 weeks. When I came back to it, it reeked! I think I now know what autolized yeast smells like. You couldn't help but gag if you sniffed the carboy.RoaringBrewer said:So, I'm going to wash yeast for the first time probably this weekend. Here's my question. I racked a batch to secondary last night after about 20 days in primary. I initially planned on brewing and pitching on cake, but no time yesterday. I also initially planned to wash yeast right when I racked (if I couldn't pitch on cake), but also ran out of time for that.
So... basically I just left a little bit of brew on top of the yeast cake and replaced the airlock on the primary carboy. E.g. I have a carboy with a cake and about 1" of beer on top of it, airlocked... Will it still be OK to wash and reuse this yeast when I get around to it? What if I don't get around to it until early next week? Is this any different than what I had before (a primary with cake and 24" of beer on top of it?) or did somehow introducing oxygen (e.g. just unairlocking it while i racked) while racking screw me?
c.n.budz said:That's by far the best description of yeast washing that I've seen. The pics are especially helpful.
+1 on the sticky vote.
After washing some Wyeast 1099 and 2000 about a month ago I stored them in the carboy @ 50 deg. I brought them up and made starters for them two days before brewing. The beers were up and going strong after a 6 hour lag time. I think the key is store the yeast cool or better yet cold in the fridge if you can. You will need to make a starter though if it has been much more than a week after fermentation and washing.EinGutesBier said:I recently read somewhere that washed yeast loses about 25% of its viability every week from the washing date. Is that true? Because I washed some yeast early to mid last month and if that's the case, the yeast is pretty much worthless now. Can anyone dispute this? I'd hate to have dead yeast on my hands here.
Bernie Brewer said:Then, trying not to disturb the stuff at the bottom, fill up the larger jar that you boiled. If some of the stuff from the bottom gets in, it's not the end of the world.
Let this jar settle for 20 minutes or so, too. You'll notice some more stuff settling to the bottom again.
Then, again being careful not to disturb the stuff on the bottom, fill up the small Mason jars. Fill them all the way up.
The four on the left are the ones I did today. the one on the right is one that I did last February. It's just there to show the final product.
All that's left to do is label the jars and put them in the fridge. Then when it's time to make a starter, you just pull one out, let it warm to room temp, and decant most of the liquid out of the jar, give the rest a good shake, and pitch it into your starter..
Hope this helps. Good luck.
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