recycling yeast

I am thinking about starting to wash yeast or at least repitching some batches on an existing yeast cake. I have always just dumped everything from the boil kettle into the fermenter including the pellet hop sludge. For those of you that harvest/ repitch is it better to use a hop bag and filter the break material out or is it not a problem?

I use a hop bag (always have) but don't filter above and beyond that. It takes me 2-3 washings to get a nice creamy/tan/clean yeast.

I use the whirlpool method which is extremely simple and works fairly well. After you're done chilling the wort, leave it in the kettle, and stir the livin' out of it to get it swirling as fast as possible. Then just wait a couple of minutes until it is mostly slowed down. Then rack into your primary with the active yeast cake. What happens when you do the whirlpool all of the protein break and hop bits form a nice cone in the center of the kettle. Since you rack from a side, you leave most of it in the kettle.

Scott

Steal it off your starter, that's the easiest way.