Keeping Washed Yeast

How long can you keep washed yeast in mason jars for before their next use? I'm thinking about starting to keep some yeast from prior cakes but my brewing schedule can be a bit sporadic.

I have had some in my fridge for over 3 months, used some 2 weeks ago in a starter, worked great!

I have read where people have had it 6 months even longer and they came to life.

Schnitzengiggle said:

I have had some in my fridge for over 3 months, used some 2 weeks ago in a starter, worked great!

I have read where people have had it 6 months even longer and they came to life.

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The longest I ever saved and used washed yeast was about a year. I have some yeast that is over a year old, but I'm not sure I'm going to use it.

I've had a couple of jars not smell very good when I opened them, so I just threw those out. Maybe it was a bacterial contamination, even though I was so careful. Still, most of the time the yeast is viable and I spend very little money on yeast.

This weekend I used some yeast that I washed and put in jars in November 8, 2008. So about 8 months old. The starter took about a day to get going, so it needs extra time. Other than that, it worked great.

The key to this is obviously being as sterile as possible. Remember, you're going to be storing this for some time. Any bacteria or fungus that may have entered your washed yeast is going to have some time to take a foot hold. Using a pressure cooker to SANITIZE your jars is, in my opinion, a must.

I just used a washed jar of WLP001 that has been sitting in the fridge for about 7 months now without any problems. Honestly, I didn't even notice a difference in the amount of time needed with the starter. About 24 hours in I had good signs of fermentation in the starter.

Yeasties are resilient little bastards!:rockin:

rsmith179 said:

Using a pressure cooker to SANITIZE your jars is, in my opinion, a must.

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If you use a pressure cooker correctly, the contents will be STERILIZED.
(I'm sure that's what rsmith meant to say.)

I have, on more than one occasion, used yeast that had been in a jar for over a year. I currently have an American Wheat that is fermenting with 1010 that had been in the jar for over a year. I've had good luck so far.