Well I did it...pitched some slurry and attempted yeast washing

I had been fairly efficiently using/culturing my stores of WLP001, but blew it (underpitched) during my last brew and had to use my last two mason jars to get going. After checking threads about yeast washing ("bernie's" illustrated yeast-wash, and others), here's what I decided to do today...rack, brew and have a few!

1. I racked my SN Celebration Cloner to a corny.
1a. Had some Stone IPAs.
2. With the autosiphon, slurped up slurry to fill three 16oz sanitized mason jars.
3. transfered my Stone IPA Cloner (thanks Yooper) to my freshly cleaned/sanitzed 6-gallon carboy.
3a. Had more Stone IPAs.
4. Pitched approx. 10oz of unwashed slurry harvested as described above.
5. Proceeded to wash the other two mason jars worth of slurry and refrigerated.

Relevent notes on procedure: I brew as clean as necessary, but try to do things simply (two young kids and a wife limit my brew time). I throw hop pellets right in to the brew pot and use an immersion chiller, which produces quite a bit of sludge/hot break material. I try to limit the amount of sludge going into the primary, but ususally end up with 2 inches of trub (yeast cake and other stuff) following two weeks in primary.

Questions: Anyone had success/failure pitching unwashed slurry similar as described (I'm hoping I didn't screw the pooch)? Potential flavor issues? Suggestions on how to do it different next time?

Comments welcome, keep in mind I've only been at this for about 3/4 of a year (Fathers Day 2010). Thanks.

I had a similar question a couple weeks ago - I have some green slurry with no visible separation between yeast and trub. Advice at that time seemed to indicate that I could pitch away.

I ended up washing (and creating a starter for) half of it and the other half is in a growler sitting in a spare fridge for later. Will pitch the 'clean' yeast tomorrow.

**Update**

I am very happy to report that strong fermentation is currently ongoing, and considering the amount of krausen, it's been going for a couple hours. Therefore, fermentation likely started before 12 hours from pitching the yeast cake/trub slurry.

Given the perceived success (above) and understanding that yeast can be used "safely" in this capacity for 3 to 4 generations, I may use this method for future "same-day racking/brewing" if no problems are observed with the Stone Cloner. I will however be a bit more careful/selective when harvesting from the yeast cake to try and better limit siphoning up as much trub.

WRT to the yeast washing, one mason jar has very little trub and a noticeable layer of yeast while the other seems to be only trub...oh well...2 out 3 ain't bad. I'll make a large starter and pitch salvaged yeast and let them multiply away. I'll split that new volume into a couple of mason jars and with any luck, increase my stores of WLP001 without spending any beer money...unnecessarily. Cheers.