WTK: How to Wash WLP007

Looking for advice from those who reuse/wash their WLP007.

It seems nearly impossible to separate the trub from the yeast as the yeast drops and coagulates to fast.

So for those of you that reuse WLP007, what are your tricks?

This is one of the reasons I no longer wash yeast. Instead, I split my starters. Whenever I make a starter, I use yeastcalc and shoot for a cell count that is 150% of what I need to pitch. After it's cold crashed for a day or three, I decant to ~700 ml (approx 24 oz.) and then pour 1/3 of the starter into a sanitized 8 oz. mason jar that will be saved to make a starter for a future batch. The remaining 16 oz. contains all the cells I need to pitch for the current brew.

It's way less work and it ensures that I always start with clean yeast.

I don't wash yeast either, always felt like such a hassle, so now when I do use a liquid strain, which is somewhat rare these days, I tend to save the slurry, and then repitch a measured amount of the entire slurry using mr. Malty and also base it on the age of the slurry as well. I'm generally racking the finished beer to a keg, harvesting slurry from the bucket, and then repitching that day, IF e styles line up yeast wise.

With stringent sanitation, I've yet to have an issue and the fermemtations have been great.

007 is my house yeast and I've washed it a couple times. For me, the trick is to really give it a good swirl and slowly pour it into my large mason jar to settle. The hops don't pour as fast as the yeast. I also make starters for everything so I don't feel bad if it looks like only a little yeast makes into the storage jars.

I'm going to wash some 007 next week. First attempt.

If the yeast settles out first and the trub layer on top of that, then why not just decant the trub away from the yeast layer ?

Would this process work ? ( I use a bucket primary )

Step 1) Add water to bucket - Swirl - rest
Step 2) Decant trub - add water to bucket - swirl and immediately pour from bucket into large jar - rest
Step 3) Decant trub - add water to large jar - swirl - rest
Step 4) Repeat if necessary or decant into small jars.

I've washed this yeast once and have used it twice. Both times were very successful. I can't say I noticed that much more trub than the 001 and 1450 I've washed but now you have me curious and I'm going to wash the next batch and check it more closely.

Cell counts I have done seem to indicate that washing yeast may make the yeast look pretty, but it doesn't do much for getting rid of dead cells or protein. If you have a lot of hop material it will remove some of it. I don't make highly hoped beer, but I haven't seen any effect on viability from hop debris.

Here are my findings:
http://woodlandbrew.blogspot.com/2012/12/yeast-washing-exposed.html

Just pouring the slurry into mason jars and outing them in the fridge works for me.

I occasionally wash but prefer making a larger starter and stealing somebody that yeast before the brew. Last thing I want to do after a long grew is wash yeast out of a glass carboy.

I have no clue why people bother with washing yeast when this is so much easier:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/entries/yeast-harvesting-novel-approach.html

It also eliviates any concerns with only harvesting the higher floccing or low floccing etc..

No more concerns about stressed yeast from high grav brews.

the yeast is always super clean.

Why do people bother with washing yeast again?

jammin said:

I have no clue why people bother with washing yeast when this is so much easier:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/entries/yeast-harvesting-novel-approach.html

It also eliviates any concerns with only harvesting the higher floccing or low floccing etc..

No more concerns about stressed yeast from high grav brews.

the yeast is always super clean.

Why do people bother with washing yeast again?

Click to expand...

Cause it's supposed to get better after several generations as it adapts to your brewery. And to save a little cash.

I haven't used 007 but I've used 1968 a whole lot and it has a similar problem. I pretty much gave up on trying to wash it and just save the cake, trub and all in a couple mason jars. The thing that sucks is when you make a starter from these, it frequently overflows.

I'm leaning towards LLBeanJ's method for the future.

That does look a lot easier and safer.

I will probably go that route in the future

For highly flocculant yeast, splitting starters sounds like the way to go. Wish I had known that before I pitched my last batch with 1968.

Now my question is, how many generations does one think it is possible to keep splitting before you start seeing effects in your beer? Since this yeast is not subject to the same rigors of fermenting a full batch would it be safe to say that more usable generations are able to be saved?

FourSeasonAngler said:

For highly flocculant yeast, splitting starters sounds like the way to go. Wish I had known that before I pitched my last batch with 1968.

Now my question is, how many generations does one think it is possible to keep splitting before you start seeing effects in your beer? Since this yeast is not subject to the same rigors of fermenting a full batch would it be safe to say that more usable generations are able to be saved?

Click to expand...

Good question

When culturing yeast with a starter vs a normal fermentation you have some things working for you, and some things working against you. Because it is a low stress environment there will be less genetic diversion, but because the conditions are different than that of beer, you are selecting cells that do well in beer Utopia instead of ones that make good beer.

In the end, I would say, yes it will behave more like the initial strain for longer than if it was under the stresses of fermentation.