I just finished fermenting a Sam Smith India Ale clone and was ready to wash my yeast and save it as illustrated in the sticky in this forum. The night before I was going to do this, I was talking to another home brewer who has a lot more experience than I do and brews some really good beers. I asked him how he reuses his yeast and he says that when he's done transferring out of his primary, he sticks the siphon in the yeast cake and transfers it to a 22oz bottle and fills it about half full. He sticks it in the fridge and when he brews his next batch, he warms it to room temp and throws it in. No starter required.
That seems like it would cause problems from what I read, but he says it works every time and is the most simple method to reuse yeast. No washing, no starter. And he brews different types of beer all the time.
What are people's thoughts on this method? I ended up doing what he said, but I filled 3 pint jars about 3/4ths full and have them stored in my fridge. Is it ok not to wash them? I was thinking of reusing the yeast in a cream ale or porter. The original strain was Wyeast 1098. I really don't want to go through the process of brewing a batch of beer to find out it didn't ferment or I have off flavors in my beer because my yeast wasn't any good.
That seems like it would cause problems from what I read, but he says it works every time and is the most simple method to reuse yeast. No washing, no starter. And he brews different types of beer all the time.
What are people's thoughts on this method? I ended up doing what he said, but I filled 3 pint jars about 3/4ths full and have them stored in my fridge. Is it ok not to wash them? I was thinking of reusing the yeast in a cream ale or porter. The original strain was Wyeast 1098. I really don't want to go through the process of brewing a batch of beer to find out it didn't ferment or I have off flavors in my beer because my yeast wasn't any good.