How do I use yeast I have harvested???

Happy New Year! I harvested 3 jars of yeast from my last batch IPA. I plan to do,a yeast starter tomorrow,in my beaker. What part of the yeast jar do I add to the wort? Do I add whole jar after shaking? Am I trying to use the top or bottom? Just need some advice. Thanks

Mike

Here is what I do:
Take yeast out of fridge, decant liquid on top of yeast, let warm up for couple hours, make wort, dump in yeast.

Assuming you have completed a sanitary capture and rinsing of still-active yeasts to end up with your 3 jars and the jars will rest until tomorrow, you can decant the liquid off the top and simply pour in the yeast cake. No reason to shake and add extra water. I guess it wouldn't hurt either, but it is diluting your starter wort (even if only slightly).

I added wort to mine to mix up then dump into the wort after aerating, looking at the slurry i had it was hard to determine what the trub and yeast was.Although i have just read after pourning off the liquid,pour into the fermenter leaving the stuff sticking at the bottom, behind.
After my first try and a successful ferment, i noticed a pretty large amount of trub on my next batch though,did i overpitch? I only used about 2 oz slurry for a 1.7 gal batch.

The yeast is the white layer at the top of the settled solids.

Read about washing yeast to find out how to get just the yeast.

For now: Pour off the liquid, and use the rest. If it is harvested less than a month, I just go ahead and straight pitch without a starter. I make a starter if it is over a month. Some folks here would say to make a starter if it is over a week.

Im planning on brewing and bottleing during the boil, that worked out better than i thought for a brew day. Then just using the slurry and saving some for my next batch in a week.Its a preety sweet process for reusing liquid yeast! Im already accounting for at least 5 batches with a 9$ vial of liquid yeast. So much for liquid=expensive.

jonmohno said:

did i overpitch? I only used about 2 oz slurry for a 1.7 gal batch.

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That was probably enough slurry for a 5 gallon batch!!! Read up on Jamil's Yeast Calculator.

jonmohno said:

Im planning on brewing and bottleing during the boil, that worked out better than i thought for a brew day. Then just using the slurry and saving some for my next batch in a week.Its a preety sweet process for reusing liquid yeast! Im already accounting for at least 5 batches with a 9$ vial of liquid yeast. So much for liquid=expensive.

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I'm not sure I completely understand your process here, but at the least, you should rinse the yeast between fermentations. Also, without rigorous control over which yeasts are re-pitched, you'll probably start to notice changes in fermentation & flavor profiles within a few more generations I would suspect.

If it's been in the fridge for any length of time, I treat it like any jar or smackpack of liquid yeast and make a starter for it. I usually decant off most of the liquid on top, the pitch it into a starter a day or so ahead of time. And if I think I need it I'll feed it just like any other liquid yeast.

Grizzlybrew said:

That was probably enough slurry for a 5 gallon batch!!! Read up on Jamil's Yeast Calculator.



I'm not sure I completely understand your process here, but at the least, you should rinse the yeast between fermentations. Also, without rigorous control over which yeasts are re-pitched, you'll probably start to notice changes in fermentation & flavor profiles within a few more generations I would suspect.

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Yeah but isnt slurry yeast plus trub. So then it wouldnt have been overpitching? Since i had 2 oz of yeast/trub slurry? I also was going to wash it, i did put the slurry in preboiled/cooled water and it settled so fast all i think i would have got was water anyway,I dont see any separate color differnece in the two oz i scooped up,its been in the fridge for my next batch in a sealed ball jar.
I dont see what you mean by rigourous control over which yeast are pitched.Its the same yeast im using.Im aware of 2nd 3rd and so on generations. Im also using the slurry within a week or that day or the next,and as far as i have read i could have just capped up the slurry with no water and used it within a week.

revvy said:

if it's been in the fridge for any length of time, i treat it like any jar or smackpack of liquid yeast and make a starter for it. I usually decant off most of the liquid on top, the pitch it into a starter a day or so ahead of time. And if i think i need it i'll feed it just like any other liquid yeast.

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^^^^this^^^^

you put it in the wort....the yeast will eat the sugars and produce alcohol and C02....

OP, I'm not sure if you've gotten your answer yet. I harvest and reuse yeast for nearly every batch of beer I've ever made (8+ years). I harvest my yeast into sanitized 1 pint mason jars covered with aluminum foil. I write the yeast type, harvest date and generation on the foil and keep it in my keg fridge. On brew day, I allow it to warm up to pitching temp, decant all but the last 1/2 inch or so of the beer on top, swirl to get everything off the bottom and pitch. I do not see any reason to wash the yeast, and if the yeast is less than a couple months old there is no reason to make a starter. However, I must admit that I tend to try and keep things simple wherever I can.

I've asked this before but never gotten a definitive answer. How do you know what size starter to make with harvested yeast? I know MrMalty tells you how much to use based on the date you harvested it, but how much starter wort do you add to it to wake it up?

mccabedoug said:

OP, I'm not sure if you've gotten your answer yet. I harvest and reuse yeast for nearly every batch of beer I've ever made (8+ years). I harvest my yeast into sanitized 1 pint mason jars covered with aluminum foil. I write the yeast type, harvest date and generation on the foil and keep it in my keg fridge. On brew day, I allow it to warm up to pitching temp, decant all but the last 1/2 inch or so of the beer on top, swirl to get everything off the bottom and pitch. I do not see any reason to wash the yeast, and if the yeast is less than a couple months old there is no reason to make a starter. However, I must admit that I tend to try and keep things simple wherever I can.

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You must have quite a bit of beer behind when you rack to have enough to pour off until you get a 1/2 in beer on top of the slurry before you pitch?Do you do this intentionally for the slury. I use water,i dont have much of any beer in mine.

turkeyjerky214 said:

I've asked this before but never gotten a definitive answer. How do you know what size starter to make with harvested yeast? I know MrMalty tells you how much to use based on the date you harvested it, but how much starter wort do you add to it to wake it up?

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I just do a 3 pints starter. I store my starter wort in 24 ozs mason jars, so 3 pints is convenient.

I figure there is plenty of live yeast, so I'm not trying to get more (although I will get more), and the main reason for the starter to to ensure the yeast are healthy.

I just pitched my harvested yeast, it was in 3/4 stored water, i poured some water till it started getting cloudy with about 1/4 of the water left, i poured this white cloudy water(yeast-im hoping) stuff into another container leaving behind the stuff that didnt want to come out, does this sound right or do i need to pitch the thick stuff? I think i just basically washed my yeast into another jar then i added some wort to it,aerated my wort and pitched that.Do i need to pitch this thick heavy stuff also that didnt want to pour out?

jonmohno said:

You must have quite a bit of beer behind when you rack to have enough to pour off until you get a 1/2 in beer on top of the slurry before you pitch?Do you do this intentionally for the slury. I use water,i dont have much of any beer in mine.

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I dunno, I wouldn't say I have a lot of beer left in my bucket. I use a sanitized ladle and there is invariably a little beer left in the primary bucket after transferring to secondary or the keg. In the mason jar, after settling in the fridge there is always a layer of beer on top of the yeast. To me, that provides a layer/barrier between my yeast and the air.

I don't over think this. I just get the remaining yeast/beer into sanitized mason jars, cover them with foil, write on the foil what/when it is and pitch when I make my next batch. I have always enjoyed excellent results with this method.

Ok thanks im just a little paranoid how long slurry lasts in preboiled water. I noticed a dark hue,probably beer sitting on top of the layer then the clear water sitting on top of that. I just figured that amberish color was a layer of the beer from the slurry.Im probalby overthinking this but really i kind of dont know what im doing at the same time,thanks for the reply.Its the only way to learn,really.thanks again.

I recently discovered washing. Well i had some refrigerated slury. I decided to pour off the clear water til i got some white cloudy stuff put that into a pyrex jar until the sluge wouldnt move much from the bottem. You think im ok pitching this? I basically didnt add the thick sluge that didnt want to pour our but i manged to get maybe like what it looked like a pack of dried yeast worth of white cloudy stuff from the water into the wort.

jonmohno said:

Ok thanks im just a little paranoid how long slurry lasts in preboiled water. I noticed a dark hue,probably beer sitting on top of the layer then the clear water sitting on top of that. I just figured that amberish color was a layer of the beer from the slurry.Im probalby overthinking this but really i kind of dont know what im doing at the same time,thanks for the reply.Its the only way to learn,really.thanks again.

I recently discovered washing. Well i had some refrigerated slury. I decided to pour off the clear water til i got some white cloudy stuff put that into a pyrex jar until the sluge wouldnt move much from the bottem. You think im ok pitching this? I basically didnt add the thick sluge that didnt want to pour our but i manged to get maybe like what it looked like a pack of dried yeast worth of white cloudy stuff from the water into the wort.

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I don't wash my harvested yeast, never have. So I cannot really offer any answers. I am aware of the washing process but I choose not to do it as I don't worry about adding a couple ounces of trub (along with the yeast) from a previous batch into 5+ gallons of wort. Lots of folks do it, however, so I am sure you'll get a response or two.

At the end of the day, as long as the fermentation for your next batch of beer takes off, you are OK. Mine usually takes off in a few hours, even during lager season.

jonmohno said:

I just pitched my harvested yeast, it was in 3/4 stored water, i poured some water till it started getting cloudy with about 1/4 of the water left, i poured this white cloudy water(yeast-im hoping) stuff into another container leaving behind the stuff that didnt want to come out, does this sound right or do i need to pitch the thick stuff? I think i just basically washed my yeast into another jar then i added some wort to it,aerated my wort and pitched that.Do i need to pitch this thick heavy stuff also that didnt want to pour out?

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The only stuff you need to pitch is the thick stuff on the bottom. And the only way to know whether you are pitching an adequate amount is to estimate the quantity in mL. against the quantity Mr. Malty is telling you you need. I always move the "yeast concentration" tab all the way to the right to find out how many mL. I need.
I wash into pint jars, and usually, I will get close to 1/2" (50-60 mL.)of thick yeast settled on the bottom in about 3 days. Of course, this is all dependent of the concentration of yeast after you have added the boiled and cooled water to your bucket. When I wash, I always only add 5-6 qts. of water to the bucket of a yeast cake and then shake it up until all of the yeast and hops gunk are in suspension. After 30 minutes, all of the hop particles have settled and all that is left is peanut butter-looking yeast solution. I then use my auto siphon and siphon out 128 oz. into 8 pint jars leaving about 16-20 ounces in the bucket. With that yeast density in each jar, I get about 1/2" after 3 days of settling. Some Ball mason jars have mL. gradations on the side of the jar. If you are using different jars like I do, use the 'volume of a cylinder' formula to calculate it.
I usually do 1500 mL starters and come away with about 1/2 cup of the thick yeast solids in a 1/2 gal. growler after the starter is finished and chilled. Most of the time I'm doing 1.060-1.075 gravity beers and a half a cup of solids is usually enough as long as it isn't real old yeast. If it is a couple of months old, I will use two pint jars for a starter.

jonmohno said:

Yeah but isnt slurry yeast plus trub. So then it wouldnt have been overpitching? Since i had 2 oz of yeast/trub slurry?...I dont see any separate color differnece in the two oz i scooped up,its been in the fridge for my next batch in a sealed ball jar.

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If you wash the yeast, there should be very little trub and mostly yeast left in your collection. I wouldn't necessarily expect to see a differentiating color line after you remix yeast, trub and water; regardless of the ratio of components - they would settle somewhat equally in a smaller vessel. Again, without knowing your exact harvesting and (possible) washing procedures, it's hard to say what you had in the jar and how to pitch it.

jonmohno said:

I dont see what you mean by rigourous control over which yeast are pitched.Its the same yeast im using.Im aware of 2nd 3rd and so on generations. Im also using the slurry within a week or that day or the next,and as far as i have read i could have just capped up the slurry with no water and used it within a week.

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The yeasts are going to have mutations as they propagate and will change over time. If you tend to collect a greater number of cells with a particular trait, that trait will become more evident as the number of those type cells increases. Also, even within the same strain, you will have cells that are more/less alcohol tolerant, more/less temperature affected, etc. Harvesting more of one or more types could change the outcome of your fermentation in future generations. I guess if you are waiting until fermentation is complete and then harvesting a cross-sampling of all yeasts, then the variations may not be that apparent for a long time.