Can anyone explain this jar of yeast?

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Jeepaholic

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This is a batch of Wyeast 3787 trappist high gravity I made from the yeast stuck to the walls of my flask after pitching the first starter. What I did is after pitching my 2 liter starter I added 1 liter of 1.020 wort, let that go for 2 days, decanted it added 2 liters of 1.040 wort and after 2 days I cold crashed it. I decanted the liquid on top leaving just enough to fill this mason jar. The jar is about 2.25"X6" tall. It seems I got very good growth giving what I started with.

My question is what is above and below the line? The bottom stuff should be yeast as its creamy white. The top is much darker. All that was in it is boiled DME, energizer and nutrient. I allways thought that the yeast would be on top.
 
Hmm, with that kind of timeline it is a little strange for you to have such a high mortality rate. Maybe just yeast whose metabolism has shut down due to the cold?

That reminds me of what my brothers yeast vial looked like after it sat in the fridge for a week or so. It still worked dandy when he did his beer, so the yeast definitely wasn't dead.
 
You kind of but not really washed the yeast. the top layer is beer under that the peanut butter like color is the yeast and the heavier trub settles to the very bottom. There is a thread here on HBT called yeast washing illustrated that gives great instruction on yeast washing. If you follow the instructions on that thread you can further seperate the trub and yeast from that container.
 
I have had something similar happen with highly flocculent English yeast before. Can't say for certain, but I believe the good yeast is the bottom layer which settled out faster than the trub on the top. I had a similar looking jar and poured off the dark layer to make my starter to repitch. had no problems. Some guys on here talked about it here. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/yeast-washing-highly-flocculant-strains-152080/index2.html

Hope that helps.
 
This strain floculates so fast and hard I bet it is rein on top and yeast on bottom. When I pitched the first starter into the beer I had a very hard time breaking it up and getting it out of the flask. I could tell when it was done fermenting in the starter because you could see large clumps spinning in the wort. I did not think that it flockulated that hard but my experience has shown otherwise.
 
I have had something similar happen with highly flocculent English yeast before. Can't say for certain, but I believe the good yeast is the bottom layer which settled out faster than the trub on the top. I had a similar looking jar and poured off the dark layer to make my starter to repitch. had no problems. Some guys on here talked about it here. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/yeast-washing-highly-flocculant-strains-152080/index2.html

Hope that helps.

It does help, I'm going to do a reverse wash on this where I let the yeast settle and pour off the trub.
 
Yeah, I was super confused myself when it happened to me. But if your water was real cold when you washed it, these highly flocculent strains drop right out. Wash it again and pour off the dark.
 
You are not alone, I see the same thing when using this yeast. Instead of Wyeast, these pictures are from WLP530 which are purportedly the same yeast.

The small mason jar is the growth from the starter, notice no dark gel like substance. The larger jug is a harvest from a Belgian blond, there is quite a bit of the darker matter. I have repitched off this with no ill effects, this strain of 530 has been kicking around in my brew stable for 6ish generations and I would swear it produces better beer now.

I wish I could test stain the cells to find out what they are, my guess as others have pointed out, is that they are dead low flocculation yeast. The funny thing is this layer never fully compacts and stays very gel like. The big jug is what is left after washing the good yeast off of it.. it is about to get washed down the drain.

Yeast1.jpg


Yeast2.jpg
 
Thank you all for the help. I will chalk this one up to experience and keep on brewing. I will say I'm loving this yeast. I have pushed it to over 14% and it looks like it may drop the gravity some more. :mug:
 
Dang, my handwriting looks atrocious.

I am a big fan of this yeast as well. I keep 500, 530 and 550 in the fridge at all times. If the beer goes above 8% I do not harvest the yeast from that batch, they deserve a rest after that workout.
 
Dang, my handwriting looks atrocious.

I am a big fan of this yeast as well. I keep 500, 530 and 550 in the fridge at all times. If the beer goes above 8% I do not harvest the yeast from that batch, they deserve a rest after that workout.

I have only ever done one yeast washing and I don't think I will ever do it again. I plan to make large starters divide them up into containers with approximately 100 billion cells like a commercial style package and use those to make starters. when I get to the last one I start the process over again. That way I'm never dealing with stressed yeast or hops or anything else from the fermenter. It also seems like less chance for infection.
 
Dang, my handwriting looks atrocious.

I am a big fan of this yeast as well. I keep 500, 530 and 550 in the fridge at all times. If the beer goes above 8% I do not harvest the yeast from that batch, they deserve a rest after that workout.
It looks better then what's on a lot of my labels. I'm a fan of the blue painters tape labels too. :mug:
 
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