Yeast Ranching: What I'm Doing

Okay I have read several threads, books and websites.

I currently do not have all the supplies I need to do, what I will eventually do.

so here is what I'm doing now.

Racking my Belgian Wit into the Carboy, I left a little beer and all the trub. I put the lid on and shook it up real well, then I had two sanitized mason jars and poured the trub and the beer into the jars.

shook them up put them in the fridge. I have shook them up 3 more times and not sure on what I should do next.

I would like to separated the yeast into vials and freeze them but I don't have all the equipment yet to do that.

I used Wyeast 3944

I'm I still good can I leave to two mason jars in the fridge until I'm ready to make another batch or should I go to the next level and freeze those bad boys.

Let me know if I'm screwing something up.

thanks

If you're saving the yeast, you probably should wash it and get rid of the trub and the spices of the wit. See the yeast washing thread for specifics on how to do it.

Now that I have read the yeast washing post , after 3 days in the fridge the way I did it would it still be fine if I washed it .

If you were thinking of saving for a long time then it is best to take yeast from a new vial of yeast and inoculate a slant or more. These will last a long time and you can step up starters from the slants. If you use yeast that has already been in contact with unknown organisms then it is a good idea to swab a pitri dish and let that go a few days and then look for single cell growths of white material on the agar medium and inoculate slants from that. This is second best because it is not pure like a new vial of yeast.
When you make a first starter from a slant you use a used empty sterile yeast vial and put boiled/cooled wort (pressure canned) in the tube and inoculate it from the saved yeast in the slant that you made. Ferment that out. The next step is 10 times the wort that is in the vial and so on until you get the quantity you need for a brew day. You have to work in a draft free area and wipe work surfaces with alcohol and work in a big plastic bag with surgical gloves. This ensures a sterile environment and is easy to do. Do not let this scare you but do pay attention to being careful not to infect your equipment. You only touch sterile while working with sterile items or you may infect something. Make sure everything is at hand before starting your manipulations.

evolute99 said:

Now that I have read the yeast washing post , after 3 days in the fridge the way I did it would it still be fine if I washed it .

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I don't know for sure- if you boiled the jars and the water and were especially careful, it would probably be ok. Open the jars and smell them, and if they smell bad, then don't even save them. If they seem ok, you could probably try it. It seems to me that since it was in the fridge, you should be fine.