Yeast Washing Illustrated

This thread was great and came in very handy. Haven't payed for yeast in about 2 years.

Been playing around with amount of water to use and I find the more water the better. I now use a gallon pickle jar per carboy, let sits 30 Minute, then into jars. No trub. So if anyone is a firt time washing, add more water than you think you need.

You want jars filled to the top as I understand it reducing oxygen content encouraging the beasties to sleep.

jeffjm said:

Tonight I knew that I was going out after work, and also knew that I needed to keg my APA. I had every intention of reclaiming the 1056 goodness at the bottom of the carboy for a couple of bigger beers I'm doing this weekend. Since I was short on time tonight, I decided to boil my water, mason jars, etc. last night and let it cool for 24 hours.

After I got the kegging chores completed, I took the lid off of my stockpot that had the boiled and cooled water, jars, lids, and bands. The water was rust-red. Apparently I had a few rust spots somewhere, and they multiplied between last night and tonight.

So....by saving a few bucks by reusing lids and bands, I'm now going to spend $17 on more yeast, plus I'll use more starter wort than I would normally use for yeast that was harvested 36 hours before pitching.

Sigh....

Click to expand...

Never leave mason jar lids in water. It will rust even in a little water. Boil it then take them out and close the lids and let them cool on counter overnight.

I believe that has been suggested a few times. I've also used purified water straight from the bottle as several producers heat the bottles to 180 which has the same general effect as boiling albeit slightly less effective.

I found this thread a while ago and thought I'd give it a try. This is an unbelievably well written instructional. I have no questions about the "how-to" of the process. I am currently washing yeast for the first time and its going good. Waiting for my fermenter to settle a bit, and will fill the big jar. Thank you so much. I'd buy your book

I haven't read all 117 pages, so maybe this has been brought up before. Why the additional step of going from carboy to large jar then to small jars?

Last night I tried something a little different. After putting the water in the carboy, swirling and letting settle for about 15 minutes, the trub was on the bottom, a definitive middle layer of suspended yeast and then the water layer on top. Using my auto siphon, I siphoned from that middle yeast layer directly into my final jars. After sitting in the fridge overnight, I have 4 jars with a nice layer of yeast on the bottom and little to no other sediment.

Is the additional washing step really necessary?

I wouldn't think so. When I was s05 I get cleaner yeast than I do with wlp001. With it it takes longer and more effort to separate out the trub. I only keep the s05 for a month at the most anyway but I've never had any issues with it whatsoever.

dumb question here but if I use 8 ounce mason jars instead of 16 ounce ones do I need to add the yeast from two jars when I make my starter?

Depends on how much yeast you have to work with in the bottom layer. My half cup jars and half pint (cup) jars are about the same diameter so equal yeast layer thicknesses are also as a result about the same yeast thicknesses. I have two styles of half pint and pint jars also. The wide mouth half pints are roughly about the same inner diameter as the regular ring pints so the situation would be somewhat similar. I tend to use whichever ones I have available anyway and even with the half cup jars (4oz) I've honestly had very little issue save maybe an extra 24 hours of startup time but I also don't really let them get terribly old either.

Alternatively you could just step up your starter a bit. As long as you have a decent yeast layer though I can't honestly imagine it'd matter too much and would ultimately depend on the type of beer you're pitching to.

Here's my logic, if I can get a little more than an ounce of yeast which is equal to 35 mL (like the white labs vials) then using a 1 liter stir plate starter I should be fine. 1 oz in my half pint mason jar is a little more than 1/8 of the jar volume. I should be able to visually estimate how much I have. Is my logic wrong?

Sent from my Android phone using Home Brew Talk

rabidgerbil said:

I use half pint canning jars, they hold enough to make the next starter with, so that is perfect, and they stack pretty nicely, and are easy to label with some freezer tape.

Click to expand...

do you step up your starters when using a (presumably) single half pint jar? I just washed my first batch of yeast (wyeast 1768 belgian abbey II) ever and used the half pint mason jars as well. I plan on making 1 liter starters using a stir plate and only one jar (8 oz.). will this be sufficient yeast for the starter without requiring stepping up? TIA

bmason1623 said:

dumb question here but if I use 8 ounce mason jars instead of 16 ounce ones do I need to add the yeast from two jars when I make my starter?

Click to expand...

I use 8oz jars too and it's more than enough yeast

danorocks17 said:

I use 8oz jars too and it's more than enough yeast

Click to expand...

awesome! thanks for the reply.

Mr Malty questions for yeast washers.

What percentage of carefully washed yeast sediment in a mason jar would be considered 'non-yeast percentage' ?

Where do most users set the Yeast Concentration slider if using the re-pitching from slurry tab. Does anyone use this and if so do you vary it according to length in the jar?

I assume you use the Calculate Viability from Date function and input the date of harvest - yes / no?

Assuming you have 50ml of well washed yeast slurry in the bottom a jar that was harvested 8 weeks ago , approximately how many viable cells have you got now?

Made it through the first 45 pages of this thread but now have to ask the question before I finish up. Has anyone used the old White Labs tubes to keep the washed yeast in. I figured I could pour off almost all of the beer/wort/water mix and leave the trub, only moving the yeast to the tubes then top off with a little of the poured off beer/wort /water mix. Anyone have experiance or know of problems doing this???

badhabit said:

Made it through the first 45 pages of this thread but now have to ask the question before I finish up. Has anyone used the old White Labs tubes to keep the washed yeast in. I figured I could pour off almost all of the beer/wort/water mix and leave the trub, only moving the yeast to the tubes then top off with a little of the poured off beer/wort /water mix. Anyone have experiance or know of problems doing this???

Click to expand...

is this what you're looking for?

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/slanting-yeast-133103/

bmason1623 said:

is this what you're looking for?

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/slanting-yeast-133103/

Click to expand...

I didn't want to slant. I am just wondering if I can store the washed yeast in the White Labs tube covered with a little of the wort that was taken off of the yeast in the washing process.

Yes, you can. This is what I do. I found that having 12 mason jars in my fridge took up more space. So after going through the process as described I wait a few days and then decant most of the liquid out of the mason jars and pour the yeast into sanitized tubes, making sure there is enough yeast/liquid to leave no headroom.

While it *might* introduce some oxygen into the process, I can safely say that I just used 2 vials of 1-year old harvested yeast stored with this method and had no issues with it (used a starter of course).

Kealia said:

Yes, you can. This is what I do. I found that having 12 mason jars in my fridge took up more space. So after going through the process as described I wait a few days and then decant most of the liquid out of the mason jars and pour the yeast into sanitized tubes, making sure there is enough yeast/liquid to leave no headroom.

While it *might* introduce some oxygen into the process, I can safely say that I just used 2 vials of 1-year old harvested yeast stored with this method and had no issues with it (used a starter of course).

Click to expand...

Thanks, space to store all this yeast gets to be a real problem real fast.

Chefencore said:

How do I keep getting this? That yummy, creamy white layer is the yeast, right?

Click to expand...

I have been watching this and....thinking....if let to sit a "long time" the washed, or getting washed, yeast will compact more than the trub and will become dense enough to settle below the remaining trub????? "Long Time"....it starts to happen when the beer/water/wort layer starts to clear. Anybody have an answer....maybe I just need to stop thinking!!

I really hope I am not beating a dead horse here. I read through 40 pages of this thread last night and think I know the answer, but I want to verify.

Can I used washed yeast to go from one extreme to the other in beer styles? Basically, I have some barley wine setting on a cake of US-05 and am planning to rack it off this week. The cake is about 6 weeks old. Can I wash this yeast and use it for a cream ale without any of the strong flavors from the barley wine? I know I wouldn't want to pitch onto the barley wine cake, but had read (early on) in this thread that it wouldn't matter if it was washed first. I just wanted to get everyone elses thoughts before I do it since the two beer styles are on opposite ends of the spectrum.

I've never had a problem with the previous beer shining through like that. If I'm concerned about it (my last stout did concern me a bit) I washed it twice. The dilution was so great there was no noticable profile from the previous beer (I was more concerned about color tbh as I was going for very VERY light SRM in a "Bud Light" clone (don't ask)). Honestly though I've only noticed residual flavor once previously and it was my very first washing which I probably did very very poorly from a highly hopped beer (with pellets mixed in the trub) that didn't look anywhere as clean as my more recent attempts so that was probably my problem there.

To wash a second time I used a two gallon sized pickle type jars to do it and chilled for several days before pouring off the bulk of the water and redoing so. By the second wash there was next to no residual color left from the prior beer to speak of. If you're pouring off the bulk of the water on top of your yeast I suspect only color would be an issue here and even then minimally so.

While I do wash my liquid yeast to get more uses out of them, something like US-05 is so cheap for me around here that I don't bother with that, I just buy a fresh sachet.

Just food for thought. When I started washing yeast I was so happy with the results that I was washing everything before I came to the conclusion that the time/effort for doing it with dry yeast just wasn't worth it for me.

May be a stupid question but I know very little about yeast, reusing yeast, and culturing yeast.

What are the advantages and disadvantages to washing yeast/slanting yeast? From what I understand washing yeast you are reusing old/used yeast, where slanting is creating brand new yeast.

US05 is only $1 cheaper than liquid yeast here and since I've been using it a lot lately I've been very happy with the washed variety (plus have given away several to people who were convinced wl vials were necessary to make good beer).

@Jared: you can reuse yeast to make slants also (or use a dab of pure yeast from like a wl vial). The advantage of washing is cost. You get a large amount of fresh yeast that stores moderately well, is sickeningly easy to do, and stretches a $7 vial of yeast out making the expense only a few bucks with the benefit of quickly ramped starters. Slants on the other hand store a tad bit longer (supposedly but you'll find people who claim no difference), require more starter rampup processing, and take up drastically less fridge space. I've heard a couple claims of washed yeast that autolyzed but I think they used them over a year old but even then you can work around that.

Personally I consider slants a lot more work but they're so great for things like bumming a yeast sample as they require very little yeast to function. A friend of mine claims less chance of contamination which I'm not sure if I buy. It is so much easier to keep number of generations of the yeast low. I've seen people on here claim not to push washed yeast put anywhere from a couple gens to ten with lower being more common.

Btw, you can alternatively freeze yeast which i'm trying now for very long viability windows but I know very little about it as it's new to me. There are some fantastic threads on it here tho. Just look around.

Personally tho, I wash the yeast I use the most, slant the yeast I think I *MIGHT* use, and freeze just to learn about it just to know how. The idea of keeping a 1st gen strain for several years potentially just fascinates me.

Thanks for clarifying things for me


Carl

Has anyone had sanitation issues using a growler to make a starter in? Just washed my first batch and planning on making a starter with it tonight.

Nope. I used a growler with the "walk by and shake it" method for a while before getting a stir plate. Just sanitize as you normally would and you should have no issues.

Maybe I missed this, but can you just sanitize the mason jars with Star San or Iodophor instead of going through the whole boiling process?

tuskenraider said:

Maybe I missed this, but can you just sanitize the mason jars with Star San or Iodophor instead of going through the whole boiling process?

Click to expand...

Boiling/pressure cooking takes the dissolved oxygen out of the water, helping the yeasties go to sleep. It also sanitizes the water and goes one step better than sanitizing with starsan or idophor.

gingerdawg said:

Boiling/pressure cooking takes the dissolved oxygen out of the water, helping the yeasties go to sleep. It also sanitizes the water and goes one step better than sanitizing with starsan or idophor.

Click to expand...

Exactly. What are you going to do, wash your yeast with starsan? You need sterile low-oxygan water in which to "can" the yeast, after all.

bigbeergeek said:

Exactly. What are you going to do, wash your yeast with starsan? You need sterile low-oxygan water in which to "can" the yeast, after all.

Click to expand...

From what Gingerdawg was asking, yes you can sanitize your mason jars with StarSan. You still need boiled water for the washing part.

Jester said:

From what Gingerdawg was asking, yes you can sanitize your mason jars with StarSan. You still need boiled water for the washing part.

Click to expand...

...and since you're boiling water to wash the yeast, you might as well sanitize your jars with it and save your starsan. Canning the water in the jars and cooling it overnight in the fridge makes too much sense to not do it.

In a pinch I've used bottled water and sanitizer for the jars with no problems. I don't know if the yeast would have been viable as long but at 8wks it was great.

I find it unlikely the difference in oxygenation would have been much. Having worked in a water bottling plant I got to see that they boil then quick cool the water to low enough not to damage the bottles. Then the bottles are uv treated. I should note that this was purified vs spring tho. Not sure how those are done. It is certainly not an economical option tho.

Jester said:

From what Gingerdawg was asking, yes you can sanitize your mason jars with StarSan. You still need boiled water for the washing part.

Click to expand...

Cept Gingerdawg wasn't asking, he was answering...

gingerdawg said:

Cept Gingerdawg wasn't asking, he was answering...

Click to expand...

Sorry.!!! Too many quotes going on and using the iPhone app means I can't scroll up while writing. =)

bigbeergeek said:

...and since you're boiling water to wash the yeast, you might as well sanitize your jars with it and save your starsan. Canning the water in the jars and cooling it overnight in the fridge makes too much sense to not do it.

Click to expand...

To each there own!

It's harder for me to boil everything, but that's my personal experience.

bigbeergeek said:

...and since you're boiling water to wash the yeast, you might as well sanitize your jars with it and save your starsan. Canning the water in the jars and cooling it overnight in the fridge makes too much sense to not do it.

Click to expand...

I had some yeast in half gallon growlers, already washed, so I was just doing a transfer of two those two, then doing a third from a fermenter. I did end up bringing out the brew kettle to boil some jars, and rewashed the yeast since I went through all the effort. To me it seems easier to just boil a quart of water and then cool it for 10 min., swirl in the fermenter and toss into the "Iodophored" jars to reclaim one batch of yeast. YMMV.