Yeast Washing - Did I Wait Too Long?

Hi all. I racked my Belgian Strong Ale to a keg this past Monday night. I had intended on washing and storing my yeast. Anyway, life has been busy this week and I haven't had time to do it.

At this point, 6 days later, is it too late to wash and reuse my yeast. I put the lid back on my bucket and left the yeast cake undisturbed. It was the most compact of any yeast cake that I have had yet. I don't suspect that I had any problems with sanitation and this is the best tasting brew that I have made yet.

Thanks for your thoughts.

I suspect you will be okay to wash the yeast. I would say as long as your sanitation has been good, you may just have some dead yeast in there. Sterilize some water, stir up the yeast cake and wash as you normally would. I would make sure to definitely make a healthy starter when you go to use it and maybe think of pitching a higher count than you normally would just to be safe. But I think you should be fine.

Good luck!

Thanks. My goal is to get to proper pitching rates to improve the taste of my future brews. Saving $7 per batch just makes it even better.

No kidding! I started re-using yeast about 15 batches ago and the beer has been better than ever and the savings is adding up. Plus the convenience of having multiple types of yeast always on hand gives me the ability to brew most styles of beer anytime I want.

The next thing to look into is bulk hops. I bought a vacuum sealer and orderd 1 lb of 6 different types of hops. So now basically all I need from my LHBS is grain. I am brewing for about $12-$15 per 5 gal. batch. Makes it a lot more economical to experiment.