Yeast Washing Illustrated

I think 1728 was a success. Two 100ml amounts.

I harvested a Californian ale yeast a few days ago and washed it twice. Didn't get much seperation between trub and liquid as I've seen on all the how-tos . Anyway, this is what I've got now in the fridge. I've got glycerine and tubes and I intend freezing it. Can someone tell me which bit is the yeast. I think it's the very thin creamy layer. A lot less than I expected. Is the bottom stuff just useless crap? Is this a typical yield from a White labs vial pitched into a 20l batch , harvested from trub? They're 250ml containers.

Thanks!

L

My plan was to read every post starting from page 1 so as not to ask a question that has already been answered... by page 14 I realized it might be worth just asking my damn question

It seems like most folks yield about four 1/2 pint jars of washed yeast (at least that's my plan). Since I hate making starters, could I simply pitch 2 (or more) of my jars (brought up to temp) into my wort? I'm also thinking about just combining the yeast from 2 jars into 1, then pitching that one larger jar directly into the wort.

I understand one of the positives of making a starter is that it's a good test of yeast viability prior to pitching into wort... but if I trust my yeast is good... ehhh?

Cheers!!!

So I tried this tonight. But instead of the second set of mason jars I went with old white labs tunes I saved. Anybody else try this? Also I boiled the white labs tubes after I removed all the stickers but they turned almost a frosty color after. Is this a problem or is it just a side affect of the boiling?

BrightSpotBrewing said:

My plan was to read every post starting from page 1 so as not to ask a question that has already been answered... by page 14 I realized it might be worth just asking my damn question

It seems like most folks yield about four 1/2 pint jars of washed yeast (at least that's my plan). Since I hate making starters, could I simply pitch 2 (or more) of my jars (brought up to temp) into my wort? I'm also thinking about just combining the yeast from 2 jars into 1, then pitching that one larger jar directly into the wort.

I understand one of the positives of making a starter is that it's a good test of yeast viability prior to pitching into wort... but if I trust my yeast is good... ehhh?

Cheers!!!

Click to expand...

The starter multiplies the yeast cells to get a good pitching rate. Sure you could toss one mason jar and it will ferment, but you have no idea how many healthy cells there are.

If you don't want to make starters, then skip the washing step and just pitch the next wort on the previous yeast cake.

I'll pitch to 5g at sub 1.06 if within 2 weeks of harvest if I have at minimum 1/4" of washed yeast in a standard 1/2 pint mason jar. I pitched about 3/16 of an inch that produced a some off flavor albeit not undrinkable. I think most calculators prefer closer to 5/8 an inch at that point tho.

Where has this BEEN all my life? I've been pissing away money on fresh yeast every brew day, because I've been paranoid about this method not being sanitary enough, but a friend who's been using it for a couple of years finally eased my fears, pointing out that bacteria is completely unavoidable unless you have a clean room, and the few bacteria cells that make it into your wort have to compete with the almost half a TRILLION yeast cells that are going in there too. That's right, half a trillion - because if a White Labs tube has 140 billion cells, each of these jars has more than five times the volume of one tube. Even assuming a less than optimal yeast count, that's just CRAZY!



And doing this with a conical is an absolute SNAP. Just dump into a sterilized half gallon widemouth mason jar, let everything settle out, decant the wort that made it out, and begin the washing process. Every batch gives me four of these jars, which as mentioned has over five times the yeast that's in a White Labs tube!

The amount of yeast you're getting from that conical gives me brewers wood. Jebus. I have to combine or rewash to get that kind of volume. GJ.

Why would you have to use TWO. We have been using one jar with no problems, with no starter, but of course this may be wrong... THis really makes me wanna get those 5 conicals that were on ebay... lol

ubermick said:

Where has this BEEN all my life? I've been pissing away money on fresh yeast every brew day, because I've been paranoid about this method not being sanitary enough, but a friend who's been using it for a couple of years finally eased my fears, pointing out that bacteria is completely unavoidable unless you have a clean room, and the few bacteria cells that make it into your wort have to compete with the almost half a TRILLION yeast cells that are going in there too. That's right, half a trillion - because if a White Labs tube has 140 billion cells, each of these jars has more than five times the volume of one tube. Even assuming a less than optimal yeast count, that's just CRAZY!

And doing this with a conical is an absolute SNAP. Just dump into a sterilized half gallon widemouth mason jar, let everything settle out, decant the wort that made it out, and begin the washing process. Every batch gives me four of these jars, which as mentioned has over five times the yeast that's in a White Labs tube!

Click to expand...

That looks like trub, the yeast is the thin white line on the top. You probably want to wash that unless you do not care about the trub

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milldoggy said:

That looks like trub, the yeast is the thin white line on the top. You probably want to wash that unless you do not care about the trub

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I thought it might have been trub too, but I washed four times, waiting 30 mins between rinses, and stepping down from a half gallon mason to two quart size masons, to pint size, to these guys (8oz jars), dumping the gunk along the way. The stuff left in there is the exact same consistency as the contents of ye olde White Labs vials, but it's certainly an inordinate amount. It's probably not 100% clean, but... I pitched one of those jars into a 10 gallon batch of pale ale last brewday, and it took off like a cat with it's tail on fire.

Maybe I stand corrected. If that is all yeast, then you may even be over pitching

Any one in the philly area want to do a wasted yeast trade? I have a 6 gen wyeast pc bel/can yeast that is really good.

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milldoggy said:

Maybe I stand corrected. If that is all yeast, then you may even be over pitching

Click to expand...

You've got me questioning myself now! Although I can't imagine having *that* much trub left over, especially since I dump trub from the conical during fermentation, prior to harvesting.

Probably have been overpitching. Since I tend to brew on a minute's notice, I rarely do a starter, so on the two brews that yielded eight of those (the four on the right are Sierra Nevada Kellerweiss) each fermenter got three packs of US-05. But considering the volume that yeast multiplies in 11 gallons of wort, I'd imagine there's a helluva lot lurking at the bottom of the cone come the end of the brew.

I mean by pitching a jar like that it is overpitching

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I'm sure this has been answered in this thread already, but I really don't have the time to read through the whole thing, anyways my question is what size jars do most brewers use to store their yeast ? Right now I'm using 250 ml and not sure if that's good enough.

Does he actually mention the size was conical? That was my guess why he's got so much yeast. I figured it to be 10 to 15g. 15 could easily produce that much yeast depending on his oxygenation and the type of brew. I easily get half that much in 4 jars for a 5g batch. Those are only half pints and probably haven't compacted much if fresh.

Btw for those poor people like myself.... A large pickle jar (sams club style) followed by a fairly large one (wm large caliber followed by a medium (38oz) is perfect for train washing and eliminating most trub. You may need a tiny bit of water to top up the jars tho. I cut a small bit of gasket from the largest just in case it unearths a tiny bit of sugar. Learned that the hard way... May the first jar RIPs.

did you try counting how many cells are in each jar? Take the time, it may be worth finding out.

It was from a 15g conical, which usually contains 11-ish gallons. And yep, they were just harvested a week ago, so might compact down more.

Tried counting the cells, but keep losing count after 1,000,000,000, damnit!

No, but I took a sample from the button to check to see if I was getting bacterial contamination (I had washed what turned out to be stressed yeast and in 3 samples I had less than 10% trub (no bacteria) and zero non-yeast found in two mid-samples.

As a more fun sidenote thought the tiny mushrooms were "sooo cute!"

Ya, depending on the brew I could definitely imagine that much yeast if you were tiered rinsing.

ubermick said:

It was from a 15g conical, which usually contains 11-ish gallons. And yep, they were just harvested a week ago, so might compact down more.

Tried counting the cells, but keep losing count after 1,000,000,000, damnit!

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That's when you have to take off your shoes and start using your toes to help you keep track.

Just did this for the first time with California Ale Yeast that was used to ferment a big triple IPA I'd pitched with a 2L starter. I moved the wort to secondary after 2 weeks so I could dry hop, capped the primary with a rubber stopper for about 24 hours until i was ready to wash the yeast.

A word of warning... That yeast is still havin a good time in there. Halfway through pulling the stopper out, it fired off like a champagne cork. The neck of the carboy WAS full of hop/trub/krauzen. It proceeded to spackle my fermentation room and me. I could do nothing but laugh my ass off and get to washing. Thanks OP -it yielded a metric crapton of yeast. At least $40 worth by my LHBS prices. How many ml are in those wyeast test tubes anyway?

Is it the same process for hard cider? I did wash yeast from ale, very easy and with good success. I just did a hard cider using English cider yeast. I wanted to try the same method of washing my yeast for next batches but I don't feel that it is right, something is different than with the ale, in regard with the aspect of the mason jar in the fridge. Any feedback?

I've had some issue with cider. Don't know if it's lack of nutrients or what.

sheeshomatic said:

Just did this for the first time with California Ale Yeast that was used to ferment a big triple IPA I'd pitched with a 2L starter. I moved the wort to secondary after 2 weeks so I could dry hop, capped the primary with a rubber stopper for about 24 hours until i was ready to wash the yeast.

A word of warning... That yeast is still havin a good time in there. Halfway through pulling the stopper out, it fired off like a champagne cork. The neck of the carboy WAS full of hop/trub/krauzen. It proceeded to spackle my fermentation room and me. I could do nothing but laugh my ass off and get to washing. Thanks OP -it yielded a metric crapton of yeast. At least $40 worth by my LHBS prices. How many ml are in those wyeast test tubes anyway?

Click to expand...

I believe they are 50ml.

ubermick said:

Where has this BEEN all my life? I've been pissing away money on fresh yeast every brew day, because I've been paranoid about this method not being sanitary enough, but a friend who's been using it for a couple of years finally eased my fears, pointing out that bacteria is completely unavoidable unless you have a clean room, and the few bacteria cells that make it into your wort have to compete with the almost half a TRILLION yeast cells that are going in there too. That's right, half a trillion - because if a White Labs tube has 140 billion cells, each of these jars has more than five times the volume of one tube. Even assuming a less than optimal yeast count, that's just CRAZY!

And doing this with a conical is an absolute SNAP. Just dump into a sterilized half gallon widemouth mason jar, let everything settle out, decant the wort that made it out, and begin the washing process. Every batch gives me four of these jars, which as mentioned has over five times the yeast that's in a White Labs tube!

Click to expand...

This is exactly what my washed yeast looks like... about 3/4" inch thick!!

What IF there is headspace in my jars?
I understand that it is undesireable due to oxygenation but can it be a deal breaker if the yeast is stored for less than a few weeks?

Petho said:

What is there is headspace in my jars?

Click to expand...

Huh?

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Petho said:

What IF there is headspace in my jars?
I understand that it is undesireable due to oxygenation but can it be a deal breaker if the yeast is stored for less than a few weeks?

Click to expand...

you'll be fine. That jar has trillions of yeast cells in it. A few bacteria wont do a thing. Rest assured there are bacteria. Even if you didn't have head space.

Ok so I just moved on to not using a secondary, and bottled a batch of Stone RIPA plus kegged a batch of Burning River PA last night. WIth the BRPA, I had like half a gallon of trub, with the SRIPA it was literally well over a gallon of sh*t I could not use. A secondary issue here is I ended up with far less than 5 gallons of final beer. I need a better strainer, I'm afraid...anyway...

WIth all that junk, I threw is some preboiled and cooled water, stirred it up good, let it sit for 20 minutes then poured about the first half gallon off in each case. I could in no way determine a difference in layers other than a more liquidy layer then the mess on the bottom. This sat for a while then I decanted part of the top into 2 smaller jars. This morning the 4 jars (2 from each beer) look ok, but I don't know if that's even yeast in there!

Hi Natewv, I'm new to this but I've found that unless you dilute the trub/yeast with enough water you won't get proper separation like in the images. It needs to be fluid enough for the heavy crap to fall out fairly quickly

L

Well I threw a good gallon almost in there.

It's also a very subtle difference between thelayers. I had to look very close to see it

I'm through the first 40 pages and I havent found the answer to my question. I have two jars of washed yeast (1056). I am looking to make a starter to pitch in to an IPA. I usually use mr. malty calc for my starter size. How do I know what size of a starter to make?

Sorry for the dumb question. It may have been asked before but I never read a clear answer.

Cheers..

bmock79 said:

I'm through the first 40 pages and I havent found the answer to my question. I have two jars of washed yeast (1056). I am looking to make a starter to pitch in to an IPA. I usually use mr. malty calc for my starter size. How do I know what size of a starter to make?

Sorry for the dumb question. It may have been asked before but I never read a clear answer.

Cheers..

Click to expand...

Great question! Answer anyone?

bmock79 said:

I'm through the first 40 pages and I havent found the answer to my question. I have two jars of washed yeast (1056). I am looking to make a starter to pitch in to an IPA. I usually use mr. malty calc for my starter size. How do I know what size of a starter to make?

Sorry for the dumb question. It may have been asked before but I never read a clear answer.

Cheers..

Click to expand...

Doesn't Mr Malty tell you how big your starter should be? I believe it works under the assumption that the yeast will grow to max density for the given volume. You just have to make it ahead of time so they're active when you pitch.

Pretty sure I remember seeing somewhere in this thread that folks simply treat it as though it was a full Wyeast/WL vial and go from there. Haven't done it myself but I think that I remember reading it in the thread.

bmock79 said:

I usually use mr. malty calc for my starter size. How do I know what size of a starter to make?

Click to expand...

Isn't that what the 'Repitching from slurry' option on mr malty is for. I'm just starting to save harvest/freeze yeast but I assumed thats what that option is for.

L

Moreso I believe there is a tab on mr. malty that lets you calc slurry amount based on size and age of the yeast.

If concerned I would make a small starter just to wake and increase cell health but honestly if less than a few weeks since washing I wouldn't think you would have viability problems if you met the slurry requirements it gives you. It's difficult to argue with the consensus to make a starter tho and to be honest I've never had a problem with over-pitching that way. For that matter I don't think I've had issue over-pitching even when I did with dry yeast.