Yeast Washing Illustrated

I have a yeast cake which has been sitting in the primary for a few days - the beer has racked off it. Its been sealed and kept sanitary - how long can I wait before washing the yeast ?

So... I was originally planning on brewing Sunday and was going to make my starter after work. However, something came up and if I don't brew tonight I have to wait until next weekend (not the end of the world, but I am trying to get this ready for Christmas and I like to bottle condition for a month so I really need to get this going).

My question is, if I make a "starter" as soon as I get home from work and I pitch it 6 hours later, is that enough time? This is the first time I have used my washed yeast so I am not quite sure how it will take off. Maybe I'll stop at LHBS on the way back and pick up a reserve pack of dry yeast just in case.

Any thoughts are appreciated. Cheers

Bru said:

I have a yeast cake which has been sitting in the primary for a few days - the beer has racked off it. Its been sealed and kept sanitary - how long can I wait before washing the yeast ?

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Bru,

I don't have an answer to your question but I can tell you that I just did exactly what you said. I bottled a beer on Saturday (10/17) the sealed the carboy with aluminum foil and placed in my dark garage. It was no warmer than 70 this week and my garage stays cooler then the outside ambient temperature. I just washed the yeast from that batch last night (10/22) so I waited 5 days. I took a whiff of the carboy when I took the foil off and everything smelled fine. I realize that my nose is not a scientific instrument but my litmus test would have been: If it smells bad or anything NOT like yeast, I won't wash. If it smells like yeast similar to a starter/trub, then I will wash".

If I notice any discolorations in the weeks to come or find it produced a bad/infected starter, I will be sure to post to this thread and let you know.

Great - thanks. I ended up washing it and it looks and smells fine.

Bru said:

Great - thanks. I ended up washing it and it looks and smells fine.

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On any other forum, this would cause a lot of raised eyebrows.

I made a starter yesterday morning with my first yeast washing attempt and it's bubbling away right now

Is there an optimum time period for a starter ? I have read 2-3 days are the best ..is a lesser time a violation ?

I was wondering this this weekend...I had planned to try to make a starter on Thursday night so I cld brew Sat or Sunday. Of course, I forgot to make the starter.

I guess it doesn't matter this weekend, since I took a direct hit at a birthday party last night, so no brewing anyway today for me...still in recovery mode..(but they all loved my beer )

Anyway, is there any plm with making a starter one day and brewing 24 hours later ? I should know by then if the yeast are viable, at least.

kappclark said:

Is there an optimum time period for a starter ? I have read 2-3 days are the best ..is a lesser time a violation ?

I was wondering this this weekend...I had planned to try to make a starter on Thursday night so I cld brew Sat or Sunday. Of course, I forgot to make the starter.

I guess it doesn't matter this weekend, since I took a direct hit at a birthday party last night, so no brewing anyway today for me...still in recovery mode..(but they all loved my beer )

Anyway, is there any plm with making a starter one day and brewing 24 hours later ? I should know by then if the yeast are viable, at least.

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I've done it a few times and it seems to work just fine. Shoot, I did it my last brew. I made my starter the night before the brewday and pitched it at around 4 pm the next day. My 5.5 gallons of porter was fermenting in 45 minutes!
I typically make my starters for medium gravity beers with 4 cups of water to 1 cup of light dme.
I boil that that for 15 minutes and cool.
I add 3 turkey baster pulls of washed yeast and let it rip.

Works every time for me.

If I don't forget to make a starter, I typically make one 2 days b4 my brew day.

Good Luck,
J

kappclark said:

Is there an optimum time period for a starter ? I have read 2-3 days are the best ..is a lesser time a violation ?

I was wondering this this weekend...I had planned to try to make a starter on Thursday night so I cld brew Sat or Sunday. Of course, I forgot to make the starter.

I guess it doesn't matter this weekend, since I took a direct hit at a birthday party last night, so no brewing anyway today for me...still in recovery mode..(but they all loved my beer )

Anyway, is there any plm with making a starter one day and brewing 24 hours later ? I should know by then if the yeast are viable, at least.

Click to expand...

last night about 7 pm I pulled some yeast that I had washed a few weeks back and made a starter with it...I started my brew and pitch my starter at 1 am that had taken off in only 6 hours...by 6 am the wort had a good start on the krausen and was churning along very nice...

I pitched my starter I made with washed yeast today at around 5:30 and I just checked it about a half hour ago and I had activity in the airlock! Now I'm wondering if I'll need a blowoff tube.

Sweet

Thanks for the refresher on yeast washing. Judging from my notes of 5 years ago, this is almost exactly what I used to do. Can't wait to try it again this week or weekend when I rack to secondary.

Hope this wasnt answered and I missed it .....

If I take and wash the yeast following the instructions given in this thread ... and fill 4 mason jars.... How much yeast is that in each jar.

In other words ..... wanting to make a say ... 250 billion cells in a starter .... what Im I starting with?

Thanks for any input.

Thanks so much for this great post. I'm getting ready to wash my first batch of yeast, from my Xmas Ale I'm bottling tomorrow and I have question that's not so much to do with the washing as it is with prepping the jars.

I just finished boiling my new mason jars and they came out with a white, hazy film on them. I scoured some canning forums and saw several places referring to this being common with water that has a lot of minerals in it. I live in San Diego and we have pretty hard water, so I assume these are just mineral deposits from the 20 minutes they spent boiling. The fix they suggest is to add some white vinegar to the water and that will get rid of the film. Obviously I can't do that if I'm using the water they are boiled in to suspend the yeast so my questions are:

1. Has anyone else had this problem? Is it mineral film? Or something to do with the new jars, maybe I needed to was them better?

2. Do you think the jars (and the water in them) are safe to use? Or should I dump them and start over.

3. In future batches do you think it makes sense to boil them in a vinegar spiked water to eliminate the film. Then drain them, like you would for canning, and fill them with either separately boiled water or distilled water?

Hopefully I'm worried about nothing but I thought I'd run it past the hive mind and see what comes back.

Thanks again.

This is an awesome thread. We should all be saving a ton of money even if we wash only one time. I do have an issue with my first attempt, which brought up something that I didn't see in any of the pictures. I followed the instructions up to the point where I had to divide the slurry into 4 smaller jars. My daughter was sick, and I had to tend to her before I could divide the jar up. I figured I wouldn't get to it right away, so I threw the jar in the fridge. It's been sitting in the fridge for a week now, and I have three layers. One is a cloudy liquid layer, which gets clearer by the day, below that is a thick dark layer which has some dark sediment floating just above it. The third layer is a lighter layer, which looks like what you'd see in a White Labs vial. I'm guessing that the lighter thick layer on the bottom is the yeast, and everything else should be poured off leaving me with pure yeast which can be divided, or pitched into a starter. Am I correct in this thinking, or did I mess the whole thing up and should dump it. I did this with 2 batches on the same day, so I actually have 2 batches that I'd like to keep, but If I flubbed it, then I'll know for next time. Any suggestions or help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance for any answers

Just a data point, I've had problems getting washed yeast to reactivate after over a month in the fridge. I've had good results with washed yeast less than 2 or so weeks in the fridge. Your mileage may vary. In large part, I've switched to pitching on top of existing yeast cakes.

similar question to mikeysab--This was my first attempt at yeast washing. It may be hard to see in the attached picture, but I think I failed in not disturbing the trub too much. You can see a lot of gunk at the bottom and a thin yeast layer--these were supposed to be my "final" jars. Can / should I sanitize some more jars in iodophor (while I brew today, it would be fairly easy) and then decant again? The jar on the far left looks better than the others--the rest have a distinct dark layer at the bottom and a thin layer of lighter color above that. Or should I just let it be? thanks for any advice!

yours is the complete opposite of mine. My dark layer is on top of the lighter layer. Don't really want to do anything till I get an answer from someone who knows about this stuff.

I've had some yeast that had a couple layers like yours. I took some disposable pippets I had from cynmar and collected a couple of samples from the layer that I knew was yeast and made a small starter. I then stepped it up till I had a big enough colony.

I decided to wash again by boiling some more jars, shaking up the old jars to re-suspend the yeast, waiting for some trub to settle, and then transferring. It looks like it came out much better. So it seems that if you still have trub, just wash again.

commonlaw said:

similar question to mikeysab--This was my first attempt at yeast washing. It may be hard to see in the attached picture, but I think I failed in not disturbing the trub too much. You can see a lot of gunk at the bottom and a thin yeast layer--these were supposed to be my "final" jars. Can / should I sanitize some more jars in iodophor (while I brew today, it would be fairly easy) and then decant again? The jar on the far left looks better than the others--the rest have a distinct dark layer at the bottom and a thin layer of lighter color above that. Or should I just let it be? thanks for any advice!

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So I tried this for the first time last week, and ... holy crap it was easy. So easy. Unbelievably easy. If you're reading this thread and haven't tried yeast washing yet because it looks difficult and complicated ... just do it.

Anyway, to save room in the fridge, I first used 2 quart-sized jars, let them sit for about 24 hours, then decanted into 4 4-oz jelly jars. As the pic shows, it's pretty much all yeast in there, no trub. But my question is: since these jars are pretty small, is the yeast in one of them enough for a regular-sized starter? Or should I combine the yeast into 2 jars? I'm honestly not interested in having to start with a smaller starter, then step it up (at least for a normal OG beer), since, well, that's more work than I wanna do. If that's the case, I'd rather just combine them.

EDIT: Oh, these have been sitting there for about a week.

What do y'all think? Thanks in advance for any advice!

Not that I've done it yet, but I think you can go straight to a regular size starter from 1 jar (esp. if you use a stir plate). I wish I had used smaller jars--no point in taking up so much room in my fridge. Of course, I'm already wanting to move on to slanting yeast.

Palefire said:

So I tried this for the first time last week, and ... holy crap it was easy. So easy. Unbelievably easy. If you're reading this thread and haven't tried yeast washing yet because it looks difficult and complicated ... just do it.

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+1 Yeast are pretty tough guys. As long as you handle with care (read use santaized equipment and clean water) they're good to go.

Palefire said:

But my question is: since these jars are pretty small, is the yeast in one of them enough for a regular-sized starter? Or should I combine the yeast into 2 jars? I'm honestly not interested in having to start with a smaller starter, then step it up (at least for a normal OG beer), since, well, that's more work than I wanna do. If that's the case, I'd rather just combine them.

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I've always used just one in a starter and haven't had any problems with getting enough. As far as I know combining won't hurt you, but it will decrease the number of brews you get from each harvest.

Edit: BTW mine typically sit for 1-3 months before I use them.

Have you had any trouble bringing them back from 3+ months from harvesting? I've had a couple that have been slow to take off, though it could be from lack of aeration, etc.

I've brought yeast (WLP001) back to life after a year of storage in a fridge. It looked down and out with a little brownish (I know not ideal, but I wanted to try it anyways). I made a starter out of it and let it run for 72hrs on the stir plate. After I let it run for 72hrs I took it off the stir plate and let it sit at room temperature for about an hour to kind of settle out. I then poured the liquid off into another starter not to disturb what had settled out. I let the second starter go for 72hrs and it was a nice creamy white I'm use to seeing. I made an excellent Pale Ale with it, without any problems.

How large were those starters, 2L?

I don't have my notes in front of me, but I think the first starter was 500-750ml range. I used a pipet to collected a little sample of the yeast out of my storage jar. The first starter was maybe in a range of 1.020-1.030ish OG. I then stepped up the second time 1500ml or slightly bigger.

Were you doing it in a 2000ml beaker? Something else? Any airlock or porous stopper?

I washed my first yeast today. I collected a few jars but one jar is not filled completely. Is this a concern? I can't see any reason but in all of the pictures I have noticed in this post are of full jars, and the instructions say to fill completely.

I love looking in my fridge and seeing all that yeast I don't have to buy!

Thanks OP.

Question about yeast generations - which may have already been answered, but Ireland were completely robbed by France today in World Cup Qualifying, I'm horribly pissed off, and used several brews to numb the pain - so I'm too tired and incoherent to go through 55 pages!

Let's say I roll with a store bought yeast, and brew with it. This would be the first generation, right?

Following the (outstanding) methods in the tutorial, I end up with four mason jars of yeasties lurking in my fridge. Each of these jars would be second generation?

And the resulting yeast cakes of these guys (each harvested as outlined) would be generation three?

So based on that, simple math would be 1x4x4x4x4 = 256 batches by the time you're done with the fifth generation? Good God, how many batches have folks gone through who claim to be on the tenth safely?!

You've got the math and the generation numbers correct. However not all of use gather 4 jars from each batch

craven_morhead said:

Were you doing it in a 2000ml beaker? Something else? Any airlock or porous stopper?

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I use a 1000ml flask with just tin foil on the top. I then move to a bigger one if I need to.

just boiled 4 quart mason jars and filled a sanitized growler with the overflow. i'll be washing some of Denny's fav 50 tomorrow!

Nice thread there Bernie Brewer. I was able to get four 1/2 pint jars of Wyeast 3068 Weihenstephan Wheat. I could have gotten more, but this way I'll have room for other yeast strains. Everything went so smoothly.

I need to get another refrigerator.

I just washed some WLP300 yeast from a Hefeweizen fermentation pale. I just harvested 3 1/2 pint jars worth.

I'm listening to Brew Strong yeast washing webcast http://s125483039.onlinehome.us/archive/bs_yeastwash081009.mp3 while I'm posting this.

They don't really recommend washing hefe yeasts as they go south quickly.

Have others had good results using washed hefe yeasts and how long was your yeast stored prior to being used?

Thanks

_________________________________________________________
Update

I brewed two batches with the three 1/2 pint jars

First jar was used ~2 months later to brew another hefeweizen batch. 1 L starter which roused up well within 24 hours.
No problem with the hefe taste.

Second and third jar was used to make a 2 L starter for a dunkelweizen a week ago (4/2). My reasoning for using both remaining jars was that the yeast viability was probably pretty low at this point. The starter took about 48 hours before I saw a krausen in the starter. I brewed on the third day and pitched after 72 hours.

I also pitched the magnetic stir bar but that's another story.

The yeast took off very quickly and I was getting co2 bubbles the next morning. I haven't tasted the batch yet but the smell is the typical clove and banana hefe yeast odor.

I will wash three jars of yeast from this dunkelweizen batch.

So here's a data point that 4 month is a viable time period for washed WLP300 hefeweizen yeast.

Are there any risks associated with washing yeast from a bad batch? I had a thermometer malfunction and dumped a pale ale on a Wyeast 1968 (Lond ESB) yeast cake at about 85F. The batch is bad, but I had planned to wash the yeast cake for future brews. Is it worth saving or is the yeast compromised?

I'd save it. The yeast is still viable (IMO) and the flavors in your batch were due to the high. I'd think the yeast is probably stressed out a bit, but it'll relax when it's put back into a dormant state. You could take the extra precaution and get a pipet (turkey baster) and take a really small sample from your storage jar and make starter up. That way you can build the colony up at a controlled temperature. Just my two cents.

tincob said:

I just washed some WLP300 yeast from a Hefeweizen fermentation pale. I just harvested 3 1/2 pint jars worth.

I'm listening to Brew Strong yeast washing webcast http://s125483039.onlinehome.us/archive/bs_yeastwash081009.mp3 while I'm posting this.

They don't really recommend washing hefe yeasts as they go south quickly.

Have others had good results using washed hefe yeasts and how long was your yeast stored prior to being used?

Thanks

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Like you am interested in harvesting wheat hefe yeast. After listening to this MP3 around the one hour mark they summarize and the two fella's each use different, almost contradictory processes: one washed yeast for only a one time future use, mixed up all the trub, uses hefe yeast within a week, uses other yeasts within a few weeks, and says $6US is cheap($12CDN for me) for a new liquid yeast pack so why even bother with the minimal cost. He adds it is a "quality" issue as the washed yeast degrades over time. The other guy washed his yeast for multiple uses, only mixes the top of the trub goop, and keeps his washed yeast for a few months in the fridge.

Some other relevant posts in this this thread "...As to how many generations, that is a common topic of discussion. There are those that will only go five generations, there are those that say you can go to ten or more generations, if you are using good sanitation techniques. The biggest thing to remember is, if the you know the yeast well, and know how it should ferment, and if it is still doing that, then it is still good. If you are getting odd flavors, or it is taking forever to kick off, etc, then you have probably had a mutation happen, and you should start with a fresh batch."

I've washed WLP 001 Cali Ale and WLP 023 Burton Ale using the process illustrated. I have noticed a HUGE difference in my starters. The washed yeast starts much faster and has a 2-3 inch kreusen while the staters from White Labs vials barely have a kreusen at all. They both work fine but the washed yeast just seems so much more active and healthy than the vials, even after 4-6 months. White Labs recommends a 1 qt/3oz DME starter for 4-6 hours prior to pitching. I usually let starter sit for 24-36 hours.

Get the yeast into an airtight, sterile environment(the boiled water you added to the trub) they'll last an incredibly long time. Store cold but do not freeze in the refridgerator.

No you cannot take a "vial" of White Labs liquid yeast and split it into multiple vials. There is too small a quantity of cells. Probably well less than 100 billion. Even a single step starter will just get you into pitchable territory. After fermentation a full yeast cake from the bottom of a 5 gallon batch will have yeast cells in the trillions. This can easily be split into multiple mason jars with plenty enough yeast in each jar for a pitch. A fresh yeast cake, once washed, will have nearly 100% viability since the yeast is so fresh.

You can use one of the mason jars of washed yeast directly in a batch without using a starter. Some guys do this every time they use washed yeast and not only the same day it was created. The way I package it (with about 6-7 oz of 80% density slurry) I have 4-6 times the cell count of the original WL Tube which is fine for direct pitch. And considering the fact that the yeast just finished fermenting a batch of beer successfully then how can there be even a miniscule chance that it is not viable? There is no better evidence that it is alive and well. Make sure to pitch it at the same temp as the wort so you don't shock it.

Confirms for me that the experienced users must still be making good quality beer using washed yeast a few times and up to a year old.

Kudos to Bernie. I washed some 001 so I can use it again. I did not have the four smaller jars so I used three quart jars and filled up two from the bucket, let them set and then poured into the last quart jar. I kept the other two just to watch the difference. Looking good so far.

How do you cap the jars after boiling? Do you let the whole pot of boiled water and jars come back to room temp, covered, and just work with very clean hands / gloves?

I very carefully use tongs that I've boiled along with the jars, to get lids on the jars while everything's still submerged, then lift them out with tongs and then tighten the lids.