Du you reuse unwashed yeast?

So how many of you reuse unwashed yeast?
I do it all the time. Sometimes I rack straight on a yeast cake. Other times after raking off to a keg I store the slurry into 2 jars. Later on I use one of those jars instead of a starter on a brew day. This is my favorite method. The jars with yeast can sit in a fridge a month or longer. I reuse the yeast up to 5-6 generations or so and then start all over. So far no problems at all.
How about you? Should I be worried about autolysis?

Do it all the time. In fact I plan my brews with pitching slurries in mind. Just did a string of 4 lagers with slurries. Have a Pale Ale going right now that's a slurry donor for a big DIPA. Great way to save $ and get fast fermentation starts. All it takes is a half to full pint of fresh thick slurry depending on the OG. Mason jars work great for this. Just be sure to sanitize (starsan soak) them first. Cheers!!!

I do both...

I save two mason jars of slurry. One jar I will not wash and use for a same style batch.

The other jar I do wash and use for batches where I do not want flavors from the previous possibly adding to the new batch.

I do it for my lager yeast. I am brewing end on end batches so really it only stays in the fridge for about a day. I sort of half wash it. I swirl the yeast from the last back, add a bit of water and store it in the fridge. The next day I brew with it using most of the liquid, and leaving a bit of the trub behind.

I also do the same for my ale yeast. But since I do not brew ales most of the time I have the time to properly wash the yeast. I let that sit in the fridge for months.

I tend to repitch 2-4x, using only 250ml of yeast slurry with everything else going down the drain.

You really shouldnt rack onto a whole yeast cake unless its a much bigger beer. There are downsides to overpitching yeast. Its not going to make a horrible beer, just like underpitching, but it will not taste the best it could.

I actually take a different route

I make a 200ml starter then decant of 1000ml into 2 jars and seal them. Then pitch the rest

The other 2 are there to ramp up again at a later date.

I used to with liquid yeast. Now that I pretty much use dry use it's not really worth the time and effort to re-use yeast. AS dry yeast is so much cheaper then the liquid.

I keep slurry from most batches, excepting very high gravity beers. I try to use the slurry in progressively higher gravity beers, but have had success ignoring that rule as well. I'll pitch a monster beer onto a cake if available. For instance, the 1.09x DIPA goes on top of a cake leftover from a mid-gravity APA, and my next brew, likely taking place on Saturday, (a barleywine - shooting for 1.1x) will be going on a cake from a brown porter that's ready to transfer. With something huge like the barleywine or DIPA, I'd rather overpitch a bit than underpitch. Otherwise I just pitch a mason jar of slurry with most of the liquid decanted off and let it ride.

Interesting topic as I was just wondering this myself last night. I have pitched onto a yeast cake a couple of times with good results. As someone else said, you should make sure that the next beer is much larger. However, it has been said that pitching onto a cake can be a bad practice because of dead yeast cells, break material, over pitching rates (which suppress flavor development). I have also rinsed yeast using water with good success. I am going to rack some yeast from a cake into mason jars and make starters with them. While racking onto a yeast cake is easy, it is sloppy brewing practice in my opinion. As a brewer I want to have the most control over my process from start to finish. Why settle for good beer, when you can make great beer? I would much rather build appropriate starters using slurry from a cake than rack on top of one.

I like to use the yeast from the secondary, it isn't washed but there sure is alot less trub with it.

markg388 said:

I like to use the yeast from the secondary, it isn't washed but there sure is alot less trub with it.

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Have you done this over multiple generations off the first original pitch? "Conventional wisdom" says you're getting the less flocculent yeast out of secondary - would you say that you find your yeast flocculating at a lower rate as time goes on, or is this another case of "conventional wisdom" being bs?

markg388 said:

I like to use the yeast from the secondary, it isn't washed but there sure is alot less trub with it.

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I posted about this a few yrs ago> by gen #5 you will have non flocculent yeast.

only gone 2 generations (after the first batch), so i guess now i know!

I have found no advantage in yeast rinsing. I like to rack, scoop and pitch in a clean fermenter. I will dump a cake in a jar for later. I really like to top-crop. I never dump on a cake. I've went 10 generations with lagers because I hate gallon starters.

Depends on the beer with me. Today I did a quick wash off of a big Belgian that went from 1.098 to 1.012 in a week in which some of the yeast will be re-pitched at bottling. Most of the time I don't bother, but the Belgians I usually do.

I top crop an active fermentation and put it in a sterilized mason jar. I leave it covered on the counter overnight so it finishes fermenting, then stick it in the fridge until I'm ready to use it.

I make sure to get enough so that I don't need to make a starter when I'm ready to use it. I just take it out of the fridge, let it warm up, and dump it in to fresh wort.

I have once and it worked great. I just have this weird feeling about a yeast cake sitting in the bottom of an empty fermenter all alone at cellar temps.

I have re-used my yeast from day one as I bought a conical on ebay to get started. I sterilize a mason jar and put an airlock on it and into the fridge. I drop the trub from the bottom usually on the second day after primary fermenting is done.
I am always concerned about off flavors and yeast straining so I am trying to learn more.

I take about a pint from the cake (for lagers) and use it for the next batch. For me its quicker and easier than making a starter (but I do make a starter for the initial batch) or washing. It does take a little planning and coordination to have the timing right and to move up in OG.

wetzie

How much of the trub do you keep? I brew with a group and we use a 40 gal. conical so there is a significant amount that drops out after primary fermentation. I would like to experiment with re-using but i am still trying to learn the details.

Special Hops said:

I used to with liquid yeast. Now that I pretty much use dry use it's not really worth the time and effort to re-use yeast. AS dry yeast is so much cheaper then the liquid.

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Same here. I use Nottingham or US-05 in most of my beers. Washing those isn't worth the time considering the price for a new packet of yeast. It seems like a lot of work just to save a couple of bucks.

RDWHAHB

It is yeast

It wants to eat sugar

Just let it

As long as we are talking yeast, I will recommend a read of Jamil's yeast book

Brewpastor said:

As long as we are talking yeast, I will recommend a read of Jamil's yeast book

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Chris White, President of White Labs, has a great book on yeast.

Stardust said:

Chris White, President of White Labs, has a great book on yeast.

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Yes he does.

I wash yeast I intend to keep for a while but I do pitch on whole cakes from time to time.

I guess I don't see a reason to wash the yeast if you plan on using it fairly soon but sometimes yeast stays in my fridge for several months and I need to be able to tell when it starts autolyzing so I can get the yeast into something new to keep the strain alive.