How long will yeast cake last...

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

McCall St. Brewer

Well-Known Member
Joined
Sep 10, 2005
Messages
1,172
Reaction score
6
Location
West Monroe, Louisiana
I used a pack of German Ale yeast for two batches of beer. When I racked the second batch to the primary I dumped it, but thought to myself that it was kind of a waste of good yeast. Is there any way to store it for awhile until I have a new batch to dump it on?
 
Well, you could always wash the yeast to use later. I have used some that was 2 months in the refrigerator. If you mean in the fermentor then I would not leave it for more than a week and that would be storing it cold.
 
How long will yeast slurry from primary keep in fridge in a jar (without going through multiple washes / glycerine / freezing)? I am brewing a batch tomorrow as a big starter for a high OG brew, and want to pull some out to do an IPA afterwards, but don't want to use the yeast from a high gravity brew. Will a quart keep for a few weeks (2-4) without much fuss? Or how much fuss do I need to do? I don't want long term banking, as I have brewers ADD, and want to move to other styles. I am happy with 3 batches off a vial for now. WLP001 is not too hard to find. I just want to keep a big amount as a starter for later, while pitching the big brew on the remaining cake.
 
javedian said:
How long will yeast slurry from primary keep in fridge in a jar (without going through multiple washes / glycerine / freezing)? I am brewing a batch tomorrow as a big starter for a high OG brew, and want to pull some out to do an IPA afterwards, but don't want to use the yeast from a high gravity brew. Will a quart keep for a few weeks (2-4) without much fuss? Or how much fuss do I need to do? I don't want long term banking, as I have brewers ADD, and want to move to other styles. I am happy with 3 batches off a vial for now. WLP001 is not too hard to find. I just want to keep a big amount as a starter for later, while pitching the big brew on the remaining cake.

A month or two is good as long as your sanation is good also. Keep it in a jar that was sanatized and cover the top with a sanatized peice of tinfoil, and keep refrigerated cold.
 
javedian said:
Will a quart keep for a few weeks (2-4) without much fuss?

I think that 2 weeks is pushing it, but it should work. I have used yeast that was about 2 weeks old for a lager and wasn't really happy with the fermentation. I should have pitched more since the viability seemed a lot less after 2 weeks.

Kai
 
Lord Sterrock Hammerson 8 said:

Thats not bad, I just bring in some of the yeast cake into my lab, streak it out on some YPD plates, pick a colony, grow up in liquid YPD and make glycerol freezedowns and keep them in a -80*C freezer. Whenever I need them, I start up a 5mL liquid culture in YPD, transfer that to 50mL after a day or two, then up to a 1L for overnight growth on a shaker at 30*C. Spin down the liter in a centrifuge, resuspend the pellet in about 50mL of the spent YPD, and dump that into my cooled wort...

trying to build up a library of yeast strains, I have brewed 3 batches, now have 3 yeast strains frozen down. Guy I work with has several he has isolated from bottles.

Then again, most people don't work in labs...
 
ColoradoXJ13 said:
Thats not bad, I just bring in some of the yeast cake into my lab, streak it out on some YPD plates, pick a colony, grow up in liquid YPD and make glycerol freezedowns and keep them in a -80*C freezer. Whenever I need them, I start up a 5mL liquid culture in YPD, transfer that to 50mL after a day or two, then up to a 1L for overnight growth on a shaker at 30*C. Spin down the liter in a centrifuge, resuspend the pellet in about 50mL of the spent YPD, and dump that into my cooled wort...

trying to build up a library of yeast strains, I have brewed 3 batches, now have 3 yeast strains frozen down. Guy I work with has several he has isolated from bottles.

Then again, most people don't work in labs...

Wow - that's pretty impressive. What do you do for a living?
 
ColoradoXJ13 said:
Thats not bad, I just bring in some of the yeast cake into my lab, streak it out on some YPD plates, pick a colony, grow up in liquid YPD and make glycerol freezedowns and keep them in a -80*C freezer. Whenever I need them, I start up a 5mL liquid culture in YPD, transfer that to 50mL after a day or two, then up to a 1L for overnight growth on a shaker at 30*C. Spin down the liter in a centrifuge, resuspend the pellet in about 50mL of the spent YPD, and dump that into my cooled wort...


Ya, thats what i do too...wait, i mean i buy a $.90 pack of dry yeast and dump it in :D
 
rdwj said:
Wow - that's pretty impressive. What do you do for a living?

I am a grad student and work in a research lab at a university, fortunately, there is a yeast lab next door and I "borrow" reagents from them, they are cool with it as long as I give them beer.
 
dOGHAIR said:
I've been freezing yeast too.
Can you recommend a cheap microscope and a minimum magnification level and tell me what you look for when choosing a colony?
thanks

Are you plating the yeast on agar plates? You really don't need a microscope, if you are culturing from beer, you should just try to get some sediment from the bottom of a bottle (pour out the beer slowly, leave about 1mL in the bottle, swirl and pour into s sterilized container, let it settle and use a sterilized loop or something to streak the sediment on a plate. Let it grow for a few days at ~30*C, you should see colonies (whitish dots which are thousands of cells that grew from one single cell). No need for a microscope, transfer that colony to a luquid culture and you should be able to grow it up no problem.

If you have contamination, you will have colonies that look different on the plate, choose one that looks as described above.
 
Back
Top