Yeast from secondary

Can I reuses the yeast from my secondary?

I made a Brit/American wheat. After 2 weeks in primary and 2 weeks in secondary I crash cooled my wheat for a couple of days to @ 38 deg before kegging.

I had a pint of nice looking yeast in the bottom after racking the beer off.

I was wondering if I could save it for a week or two then make a starter with this leftover yeast?

Anyone have any success with secondary yeast?

Don

you sure can. i have not yet cultivated any yeast, but i hear the secondary is the way to go!

i've repitched directly on top of the yeast cake and made some fine beers, too

I wouldn't reuse from the secondary. That is the yeast that is less flocculant than all the rest and thus will continue to multiply less flocculant yeast. Also, it's the yeast that is the most stressed and will only reproduce more stressed, and possibly mutated yeast. Remember that yeast reproduce by making a copy of themselves.

If you want to save money in the yeast department, save a portion of your initial starter before you pitch. Then, you can use this to make a new starter the next time you want that strain. My reasons for this are that this way you're using fresh, un-stressed yeast and that's the way to ensure your proper flavour profile.

I'm currently doing the reverse, and making my "house strain" of Cal Ale WLP001. I used a vial for my DIPA and when I saw boisterous activity at about 24 hours, I took a portion from the middle of the fermentation. This is the most active, and strongest yeast. I will reproduce these (grow up the cell count) and they will theoretically just be making copies of strong yeast. I have weeded out the weak and less flocculant yeast. Done over the course of a couple of brews I will hopefully have some super bitchin' yeast.

Exactly what pseudochef said. You get a LOT less yeast from secondary, and you're not getting the 'cream of the crop' but rather the 'lazy bastards' that don't want to behave like the majority.

the only reason I'd do this is to obtain less flocculent yeast cells from a very flocculent strain. I'm not sure there's much to benefit from that though.