1st time yeast washing attempt

I apologize in advance, I thought of this at work and I will post pics tonight when I get home.

I recently attempted my first yeast washing last weekend with Wyeast 1056 from an AG Irish Red Ale.

My preliminary thoughts before I get into the specifics:

The fermentation of this particular batch with that yeast was VERY vigorous ( I used blowoff tube for 3 days, switched to airlock for 1 day and then had to do blowoff tube again because fermentation kicked into HIGH gear on that 4th day.

That information is important (I think) because when I washed this yeast, there was A LOT in the bottom of the fermenter. I would guess that I had almost 2 inches of trub in the bottom of the fermenter when I started washing.

I followed the wiki link from the forum but did not complete the 2nd decant.

I ended up with a lot of "stuff" in the bottom of my 3 mason jars, but it does not appear to me to be layered like other pictures that I am seeing.

Pics tonight to help with this all.

Thanks in advance

To clarify a little bit...

I boiled 3 mason jars (1q and 2 pints) for about 20 minutes.

Cooled the jars and water until around 70 degrees.

Dumped into fermenter, mixed well and let it sit for about an hour then basically used a racking cane to collect from the top layers to fill the 3 jars.

I set them aside to settle and had good intentions to repeat the process and try to decant again but sanitation concerns made me second guess myself.

So now I have 3 jars, each of which has AT LEAST half of the jar full of solid materials at the bottom.

Am I still OK, or should I have decanted a second time?
Can I still do it after almost a week? I am thinking of shaking up the jars and letting them settle again and decant 1 "good" sample of the yeast if I can manage to get it to settle out like the pics that I keep seeing.

I promise pics on the way tonight to make this complete.

You have good yeast. Put it in the fridge.
water washing yeast will make the yeast look pretty, but is at the cost of discarding 95% of the viable cells.

See here for details:
http://woodlandbrew.blogspot.com/2013/01/yeast-washing-revisited.html

There are probably about 1 million cells per ml of settled slurry.

Done.
Thank you!

+1 to what he said

I will try and upload a picture of jar of washed yeast.

I had to alter my original plan.

I had left the 3 jars of yeast out on my enclosed porch for the last few days and 2 discovered today that the water/beer layer had frozen, expanded and was oozing out.
This third jar must have contained enough beer/alcohol that it did not freeze.
I shook it up and let it rest for about an hour and took the picture.

So my question(s) are:
Is this enough yeast or too much to pitch my next batch?
It seem that I read that overpitching can cause flavor variations.

When i decide to use it, would I make a starter to ensure viability?

Thanks again.

brewkinger said:

... discovered today that the water/beer layer had frozen ...
This third jar ... did not freeze.
Is this enough yeast or too much to pitch my next batch?
When i decide to use it, would I make a starter to ensure viability?

Click to expand...

Assuming they are all alive, It's probably about 1 million cells per ml.
Yes, make a starter to check viability and also build up the population. Yeast do not do well if they freeze. Do you think the yeast may have frozen and thawed?

@Woodland
My SWAG is that the yeast in the one jar did not freeze.
I am fairly confident for 2 reasons:
1) I was able to shake them right back into suspension
2) The other two jars that had frozen completely. I had to run hot water into them to thaw the liquid component and then the yeast mass in the bottom was solid as a rock.
I left them overnight and dumped them this morning.

Is my gut instinct OK?

I will have to study up on the forum to get the yeast starter process down now. Any good suggestions? Is there a sticky or wiki?

brewkinger said:

I will try and upload a picture of jar of washed yeast.

Click to expand...

So to revive an old thread about yeast washing.

The time has come for me to use the washed yeast that I harvested 2 months ago.

Assuming all the yeast in the photo are viable, it has been stated that I can assume 1 million cells per mL.

In the half pint mason jar = 8oz = 236.6 mL

So if the jar is roughly half full of what appears to be yeast, is it safe to assume that I have 100mL of yeast?

When it comes time to make the starter, is there any harm in using all of the yeast in the jar?

I have watched several videos and searched the forum and I am still a little unsure of how much DME and water to mix together to make the starter.
I have seen 2 cups water + 1/2 cup DME
I have seen 4 cups water and 1/2 cup DME

I have a 1L flask, so to make a 1L starter it seems that I would want to come close to 1L in total volume, so almost 3 cups of water + 100mL of yeast + DME would total almost a full liter (if not more)

I feel like I should get this by now, but I just do not want to screw up the process.

Help please.

100g of DME (1/4c) and top up to the 1 liter mark. This will grow about 100 billion new cells on a stir plate.

if you need 200 billion cells for the beer then use everything in the jar. If you need 150 billion use half of the jar.

WoodlandBrew said:

100g of DME (1/4c) and top up to the 1 liter mark. This will grow about 100 billion new cells on a stir plate.

if you need 200 billion cells for the beer then use everything in the jar. If you need 150 billion use half of the jar.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply Woodland.

SO.... Using BeerSmith, I entered the 1056 yeast information in the starter tab.
Made the corrections for # of times cultured (1)

Last cultured on 2/3/2013 (when I washed the yeast) I also put this date into the package date (which I am pretty sure is correct for BS to determine viability)

According to BS, I need 180.8 billion cells to ferment the pale ale that I created, which is a 0.77 liter starter (this is nice since I only have 1L flask)

This is where I get confused. In an earlier post, Woodland said to figure on 1 million cells per mL. So if I used all of the washed yeast (which we will assume is about 100mL, that gives me 100 million cells to start (if they are all viable)

So if I am understanding this all, that 100 million cells will replicate 2000 fold to give me 200 billion cells?

brewkinger said:

Thanks for the reply Woodland.

SO.... Using BeerSmith, I entered the 1056 yeast information in the starter tab.
Made the corrections for # of times cultured (1)

Last cultured on 2/3/2013 (when I washed the yeast) I also put this date into the package date (which I am pretty sure is correct for BS to determine viability)

According to BS, I need 180.8 billion cells to ferment the pale ale that I created, which is a 0.77 liter starter (this is nice since I only have 1L flask)

This is where I get confused. In an earlier post, Woodland said to figure on 1 million cells per mL. So if I used all of the washed yeast (which we will assume is about 100mL, that gives me 100 million cells to start (if they are all viable)

So if I am understanding this all, that 100 million cells will replicate 2000 fold to give me 200 billion cells?

Click to expand...

Perhaps I typed it wrong somewhere. It's 1 billion cells per ml, not million.

OK, now it is starting to make more sense, at least mathematically.

So your 1/4c DME and top up will still work if aim for the .77 liters that BS recommends, or should I just go with the 1 liter?

What will the gravity of starter wort be?

brewkinger said:

So your 1/4c DME and top up will still work if aim for the .77 liters that BS recommends, or should I just go with the 1 liter?

What will the gravity of starter wort be?

Click to expand...

Cell growth is limited by the amount of available extract, so 1/4 cup of DME in .77 liters will grow about as many cells as 1/4 cup in 1 liter. The gravity should be 9-10°P (1.036-1.040) for most calculators.

thank you for all your help with this.

I think to be safe, I will just use all the "yeast" that I have in the mason jar to be sure that I have enough viable cells to start with.

I will let you know how it turns out.

Thanks
Chris