Yeast Washing

I acquired these nifty plastic vials, they are similar to the vials that the White Labs yeast comes in. I see a lot of people harvest their yeast and store them in jars. I'm thinking about harvesting and storing in these vials. If I were to do so, would I expect that one of these vials filled with my harvested yeast would be similar to the cell count of something like a white labs vial? I would always be doing a starter, so I'm wondering if it would make sense for me to use more than 1 of these vials when doing so. Any advice or information would be great!

I use 40ml vials for washed yeast and make starters with them and they've been fine. I think White Labs vials are 35ml so I don't see why it'd be different.

Nice, good to hear. I think I'm going to give it a shot. These vials just seem easier to store in the fridge. And honestly, make me feel like a scientist ha but that's just a secondary benefit.

Those are nice for keeping frozen yeast. Where did you get them?

http://www.sciencebob.com/store/pre-150.php

Apparently these are what two liter soda bottles start out as... They seem super durable and have seal nice and tight.

Cool thanks for the link. They will work great for a frozen yeast bank!!

I would have always thought freezing yeast would kill me, I was planning on throwing me into the fridge... Is there anything special that must be done to freeze me and bring e back to life other than using a starter? Do they last a lot longer frozen?

Check this out https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f13/guide-making-frozen-yeast-bank-35891/ but I also wash yeast to!! Combining both really saves you some cash.

Yeast from White Labs is prepared under laboratory conditions. It will not lose viability as fast as washed yeast, and is 100% yeast, whereas your yeast will contain a certain amount of trub. In other words, your vials will contain much less viable yeast than an equivalent sized vial of yeast from White Labs. I use jars to store mine, which allows me to make a starter with just one jar. You will probably need to use more than one vial, or make a multi-step starter.
I can recommend http://www.amazon.com/dp/0937381969/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20 as a source of some great information on the subject.

-a.

According to Jamil and George Fix, the slurry in washed yeast is at least 75% yeast, probably more, assuming you washed it properly. And a White Labs vial isn't full of yeast either. There's probably 20-30ml of yeast slurry in a White Labs vial. They claim 100B cells total, so that's 3.3-5B cells per ml. Washed yeast should have 2.5-3.75B cells per ml (probably more). So if you have 27-40ml of washed yeast slurry in a vial, you have about the equivalent of a White Labs vial or a Wyeast pack.

Well here is what I ended up with... Looks like it worked out ok... I'm sorta in experiment mode, I'm thinking about making a starter just to see what kind of activity I get... If I do, does it make sense to store the yeast from the starter? I suppose if I pitch a vial and let it go for 48 hours I will have more than I started with.

mlager said:

Well here is what I ended up with... Looks like it worked out ok... I'm sorta in experiment mode, I'm thinking about making a starter just to see what kind of activity I get... If I do, does it make sense to store the yeast from the starter? I suppose if I pitch a vial and let it go for 48 hours I will have more than I started with.

Click to expand...

Yes, that's how you step up starters. But I think you could make starters with each of those vials and use that to ferment a beer up to 1.060. Use 2 vials for higher gravity beers.

You can keep growing yeast but 10 generations is supposedly the limit as the yeast start to mutate and become bad yeast at that point.

Thanks for the feedback, I think I'm going to do a starter with a vial and brew up a porter... I was just going to do a starter what better experiment that brewing a beer with the yeast I just washed!

Well it looks thus far like I may have been somewhat successful harvesting yeast! Pitched one vial and woke up to this. Now what to brew this evening. I was thinking porter, might be nice as it will be ready right as Arizona is cooling down!

Looks great! I rarely get that much krausen on a stir plate. I usually just get a little froth.

Arizona cools down? To what, 85°? ;-)

Actually, we cool down pretty good during the winter. It's not uncommon to hit freezing temps for a while... It's not crazy compared to other places but most people are surprised by how cold it gets here.