Lager Yeast Washing Help

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Thumbs71

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Last night I made my first attempt at washing yeast after transferring my Oktoberfest. Below are pictures after the first wash. I'm having a tough time telling where the yeast ends and where the trub begins. This has been in the fridge overnight, so I'm sure I'll have to stir it up to suspend the yeast. Any suggestions?
Do I have the "layers" marked correctly? 1 is water, 2 is yeast, 3 is trub.
Does the darkness line in 2, marked with a blue line, show a different layer?

2012-04-11_07-02-13_982.jpg


2012-04-11_07-02-23_937 with lines.jpg
 
Looks to me like the yeast is between lines 1 and 2. How many times did you wash it? There's a bunch of other junk in there so I would give it another once through, trying to separate the yeast from everything else. Got a video here that may help you http://billybrew.com/yeast-washing
 
Yeast is between 1 and 2.

I decant like this.

Put a piece of masking tape on the jar and mark #2 where your yeast starts.

Stir everything up again. Let it settle till the trub comes up to your mark.

Then I take a small 3/16 vinyl tube like used for oxygen masks
and do a minny version of a rack into jars and let settle.

Get very clean slurry.
 
Thanks for the replies, guys.

This is more of a practice run. I used 2 packets W-34/70 in this batch. I think my biggest problem is that instead of dumping all of the water into my carboy then decanting out of there, I just stirred it up and dumped everything into a 1 gallon jar. That's why there's so much junk in there.

I'll stir this one up again, decant, add more water and repeat.
 
Thanks!

I'm sure it's different for every batch, but about how much yeast should you expect to get out of a 5 gallon brew? I'm just trying to figure out if I lost a bunch while washing it or not. There's probably about 25-50ml.
 
This page will help you figure it out. I also gave someone an example in my first comment on this post. Basically, you estimate the concentration of yeast and use the volume of slurry to get at the number of cells. Not an exact science, but it will get you close enough. I usually take each mason jar (of the 4 I get) and make a starter from them before my next brew.
 
Thanks, Billy. That's great info.
I was actually referring to the amount of yeast you would expect to get after washing a yeast cake.
 
Im trying to wash a lager yeast also but in my mason jar the lighter colored liquid which is supposed to the the yeast is at the bottom of the jar and the darker stuff is in the middle, anybody knows why is that?

IMG_0336.jpg
 
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