How to store recultured yeast?

Hi, all.

So, I'm going to culture out some yeast from bottles of my homebrew (I made it before I knew about yeast washing, and it's a seasonal strain--Bier de Garde--which makes delicious stuff and I want to keep it around). I understand how to culture the yeast out of the bottle again, but most of the instructions I read are for reculturing for the purpose of making a starter to pitch soon after. I want to reculture this stuff and store it, and I'd rather not be messing with petri dishes and slants.

Should I just make a starter, step it up, then wash the yeast from the trub and store as I would for any washed yeast?


Thanks,

CB

Never done this before, but I would make a fairly large sample, so a starter would be the way to go. I wouldn't worry so much about washing it after, however, just cover and chuck the entire starter in the fridge.

Why do you want to make a starter, and then store it? You would then have to make another starter before brewing. I'd store the beer that you're going to make the starter from until close to brew day, then make a small starter, step it up, and then brew. After the brew, you will have plenty of yeast to harvest from the primary and store for the next brew.

-a.

Aw, man. Then I don't get to drink that beer. But you're right...just saving a bottle or two is probably the smartest and safest way to go.

You might want to check this out. I haven't tried it yet, I'm still getting together equipment. But it looks very promising for long term storage, a year or more. You place yeast in distilled water so that it goes dormant from lack of food, but remians viable ready to make a starter when wort is added. Once you have a collection of different yeasts you would never need to buy yeast again.

Sterile distilled water yeast storage

I'm going along the lines of this method.

Its very similar, you store yeast in sterile water and you just have to make a slant to verify the yeast is alive. Still pretty simple.

Yeast handling and Storage

I think these last two methods would work well for someone with more space and time than I have. By my reckoning, that's a lot of time to spend on saving $6 for a smack pack, but I know others may feel differently.

climateboy said:

I want to reculture this stuff and store it, and I'd rather not be messing with petri dishes and slants.

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I think that slants are the best for longer term (nonfrozen) storage. They don't call 'em culture tubes for nothin'.....

dishes and slants really aren't hard to work with, and if you steal some fo the culture before you pitch into the starter you can snag a nice clean culture. Or 5. Or 10.

fratermus said:

I think that slants are the best for longer term (nonfrozen) storage. They don't call 'em culture tubes for nothin'.....

dishes and slants really aren't hard to work with, and if you steal some fo the culture before you pitch into the starter you can snag a nice clean culture. Or 5. Or 10.

Click to expand...

Huh, good to know.

I do have a pressure cooker, but it doesn't have a pressure gauge on it. How do I know when I'm at the right pressure for sterilization purposes?

Most pressure cookers ventilate at 15psi. That's good enough to do the job.

I reuse my vials...

climateboy said:

Aw, man. Then I don't get to drink that beer. But you're right...just saving a bottle or two is probably the smartest and safest way to go.

Click to expand...

Hey, you still get to drink the beer, just not till you need the yeast.
When making a starter from the yeast in a bottle, you carefully pour the beer into a glass, leaving 1/2 - 1" in the bottle. You make the starter from what is left in the bottle, and drink the beer in the glass.

-a.

climateboy said:

I think these last two methods would work well for someone with more space and time than I have. By my reckoning, that's a lot of time to spend on saving $6 for a smack pack, but I know others may feel differently.

Click to expand...

The main space problem is the physical space taken up by the pressure canner when you are not using it.

Culture tubes are rather small, and it doesn't take significantly longer to do 10 or 20 cultures instead of just 1 or 2. I usually do 10 from each liquid culture I buy.

For me, it is worth the time and effort to have a nearly limitless supply of yeast cultures in the fridge. And it's fun in a geeky way.

climateboy said:

Huh, good to know.

I do have a pressure cooker, but it doesn't have a pressure gauge on it. How do I know when I'm at the right pressure for sterilization purposes?

Click to expand...

As others have mentioned, most pressure cookers that have no gauge are set for 15psi. The rule of thumb is "15psi for 15mins" and then let it cool normally.

fratermus said:

For me, it is worth the time and effort to have a nearly limitless supply of yeast cultures in the fridge. And it's fun in a geeky way.

Click to expand...

I do it for this same reason. I also have about 10 different strains that I can use at just about any time. Its got a cool factor too.