bottling starter

Well I didn't have time to brew my beer this weekend but I had already prepared a starter. So I split the starter into two beer bottles and bottled it (it had finished fermenting). They are in the fridge now.

Is this going to work to preserve the yeast? I'm kind of hoping to use one of them next week, and keep the other one in there for the beer after that (maybe a month away from brewing).

as long as you were sanitary it should be fine. I would still make a starter again this week with the one bottle (just decant most of the liquid) to get the cell count back up.

It sounds like you're essentially doing a re-pitch at this point. Basically the same procedure as if you'd collected the yeast off the cake of a full batch. You can use the pitching rate calculator and maybe give 'em a bit of wake up with a small starter-like concoction.

You shouldn't have to worry about using another starter to get cell counts up (at least not too much and the only reason you would is to make up for losses in collection/decanting or if you're attempting to do a higher gravity batch with them). My only experience with re-pitching is with a day at most in between harvesting and re-pitching, but it would seem that the yeast could benefit from a small wake-up after 1 week+.

thanks for the info... I take it the 'cake' is the white stuff at the bottom of the carboy? I thought that stuff was dead or something!

Sorry I didn't notice your question sooner and maybe it's too late for you to notice the answer now. Yeah, the 'cake' is mainly yeast at the bottom and shouldn't be dead unless you left it there for a very long time (>4 weeks at least). I'm not well-versed on the terminology, but my understanding is that it's basically yeast that has flocculated, and gone dormant for lack of food.

In general, highly flocculant yeast is good, so the stuff nearer the bottom of that cake is the best. Generally, you're going to have a layer of sediment (break material, etc.) at the very bottom, followed by dead yeast (which I would expect to be very low if you're handling it properly), then a continuous layer of yeast above with a gradient of high flocculation to low flocculation from bottom to top.