lazy bones yeast harvesting?

I had some sterile mason jars with water in them from my last yeast washing, so when I racked to 2ndary, I just scooped the top layer of trub from the bucket with a spoon and dropped into the jars, careful to keep everything sterile.

Do you think this will work? Anyone else try this?

If everything was very well sanitized it will be fine. Lots of people scoop it out instead of washing..

10 days later and it still looks like a glop of trub. I don't see any striations that might be yeast. I may just start one to see if it works before committing to use it in a batch...

Build a starter and see what it does..

It is too thick to give you the striations. If you are confident in the quality of the yeast, just pitch it.

SuperX said:

10 days later and it still looks like a glop of trub. I don't see any striations that might be yeast. I may just start one to see if it works before committing to use it in a batch...

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I'd bet it's almost all yeast.

It will work just fine. I bank my yeast this way. Dead easy.

I usually make a starter, add a few tsps of the trub sample, let in ramp up, and then pitch.

This has the added benefit of proofing your yeast first so that you know it is viable and minimizing generational mutations (since you always start with the same trub sample rather than repitching from each subsequent batch)

Thanks, This scooping method is really green/brown compared to the off white of earlier efforts, so I wasn't sure. I have only been marginally better at washing my past batches and they have all started and worked well. I'm going to need this yeast in a couple weeks, so I'll get a chance to try it out with my DIY stir plate and report back on both.

SuperX said:

Thanks, This scooping method is really green/brown compared to the off white of earlier efforts, so I wasn't sure. I have only been marginally better at washing my past batches and they have all started and worked well. I'm going to need this yeast in a couple weeks, so I'll get a chance to try it out with my DIY stir plate and report back on both.

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I suspect the green/brown is nothing more than spent hops and grain components. Mine are usually a light caramel color. Once the yeastie beasties multipy I suspect these "contaminants" are practically irrelevant...certainly has been my practical experience.

If your goal was to isolate a pure yeast strain then more precise techniques would be in order but the scoop, boost, dump procedure has worked fine for me.

If I have any off flavors in a brew then I don't use that batch. Even if the yeast were technically good, some off flavor components have amazingly low flavor thresholds.

Related note: currently reading the book "Yeast". Maybe I will have a more knowledgeable update after I'm done.

Curtis2010 said:

It will work just fine. I bank my yeast this way. Dead easy.

I usually make a starter, add a few tsps of the trub sample, let in ramp up, and then pitch.

This has the added benefit of proofing your yeast first so that you know it is viable and minimizing generational mutations (since you always start with the same trub sample rather than repitching from each subsequent batch)

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How long have you kept that trouble sample before using? I assume it's refrigerated for storage?

Double post

I just did this and it seems to work fine. In fact, I used a small mason jar of trub from a smokey raunchier. A month and a half later the sample smelled like a baconey fire pit. I made a 3L starter with it and after 48 hours cold crashed the starter. The starter "beer" tasted like a clean lager with barely any smoke flavor. I pitched it into a 6 gallon batch and it took off.

jasert39 said:

How long have you kept that trouble sample before using? I assume it's refrigerated for storage?

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I assume you mean "trub". Months refrigerated. I usually order fresh yeast at the start of each brewing season. Harvest from the first batches and the use banked yeast the rest of the season...which for me is about July - November. I have a few now that are over a year old which I intend to proof just to see if they are still viable.

Great thanks guys...and yes I meant "trub" silly auto correct. I'll be giving this next time I empty a fermenter

As I have stated several times on this forum, rinsing yeast with boiled water does more harm than good. I always store my crops straight from the fermentor (usually under green beer). If you plan to store a crop for more than a week or two, it is best to decant the liquid fraction and feed it a little 5P (1.020) hopped wort.

Ok, so I finally used this WLP002 to create a 2L starter yesterday and this morning it seems to be alive and kicking. I pitched the liquidy part of the sludge on the top of 3 of my 4 jars as the jars were 95% trub and I was concerned about getting enough pitchable yeast by today.

The new stir plate project spins the kreusen down into the vortex, so I don't know how much activity is going on except by the sheets of bubbles that are running up the sides of the Erlenmeyer, defying the spinning motion of the rest of the starter.

Even though it seems to work, I don't think I'll harvest yeast this way again, washing produces a much cleaner starter, this one looks like bathroom while it's spinning. I expect it will clear up when I turn it off and let it settle before pitching.

I have to add that just after I posted the above, the starter took off and the stir plate couldn't keep up with the foam. The airlock is bubbling away already, so this definitely works well enough to rely on. Since I'm converting from ball jars to soda pre-forms in preparation to freezing, I'll have to stick with washing as there is no room for trub in the tubes.