Yeast Washing Illustrated

PackerfaninSanDiego said:

I'll be doing my first yeast wash in about two weeks. I have been reading various threads and even BeerGeeks and others videos on YouTube. An idea came to me when decanting. Why not use one of those extra large syringes or meat injectors and just suck out what you want sucked out? A turkey baster might work, but it has a tendency to spit back. What say you?

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Or you could just keep it simple and pour off the spent wort, no? Seems like you're complicating a simple process.

PackerfaninSanDiego said:

I'll be doing my first yeast wash in about two weeks. I have been reading various threads and even BeerGeeks and others videos on YouTube. An idea came to me when decanting. Why not use one of those extra large syringes or meat injectors and just suck out what you want sucked out? A turkey baster might work, but it has a tendency to spit back. What say you?

Click to expand...

I pour my washed yeast into either quart or double quart mason jars and chill these in the fridge. After the yeast has collected at the bottom I use a mini auto-siphon to rack of the liquid until I get near the yeast layer. The remaining yeast fluid mixture then gets a gentle swirl and poured into rinsed and sanitized baby food jars to be stored for making starters.

I tried using turkey basters to suck the yeast layer out in the past but decided it just was not going to work for me.

I don't shell out for things I don't have to, but I did shell out for test tubes.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004PD9ULS/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

Then again, we never used much baby food (this kid will eat anything).

I'm going on 3 years homebrewing now and am about to experiment with my first yeast washing/reuse. This thread is incredible and makes me feel pretty comfortable with doing it! In addition to the money saving I think it should benefit the second batch, which is the Belgian Dark Strong (Like Chimay Blue) in the recipe forum.

Cheers fellas

Just harvested some US-05 from a batch of cream ale. Need to use some US-04 in something soon... Maybe an English nut brown of Irish red ale.


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Here is my late night start to a yeast washing - not sure why us-05 is so cheap but I keep at least one jar in the refrigerator of my main stay yeasts and us-05 is at the top of my chart as a good clean yeast the will convert anything!!! Get FG of 1.005 speaks for the yeast and my lower step mash temps - intentionally to make for highly fermentable sugars!




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fearwig said:

I don't shell out for things I don't have to, but I did shell out for test tubes.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004PD9ULS/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

Then again, we never used much baby food (this kid will eat anything).

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Wow, that's a pretty great deal. The description even states that they are autoclavable to 250F (pressure cooker @ 15PSI temps).

Yeah, don't dishwash with detergent, though. Did it to two and permanently clouded them. I toss the tubes and caps in boiling water for a minute to sanitize.

I now store cakes for pitching in pint jars, but I pour a sample of every yeast I use into these so I can start over with a starter if I have to.

Ive been washing my yeast from primary fermentation now for about a year based on this article. Ive made several beers from washed yeast, always using a starter. Ive even used yeast in a starter that had been washed 9 months prior, and the starter and beer went well. So Ive had success, I guess you could say. Recently, I had questions regarding both a White Labs strain and a Wyeast strain that Im using and I found POC's at both companies. I have nothing but great things to say about the conversations I had with each of them and the enormous amount of information and insight they were willing to share with me. Both technicians at both companies were very knowledgable about what they do in the lab.
I needed to follow up with the tech from White Labs last week and I asked him about the yeast washing process that I have been doing, ie what we see here in this thread. He is both a tech at White Labs and a homebrewer. He is a fan of washing yeast in this method, but very against acid washing yeast. He likes the use of sterile water and removal of trub. He also recommended adding no more than 1/2 tsp of DAP yeast nutrient to a whole batch of yeast before storing as a healthy step towards successful storage. He warned that anymore would likely be toxic and stress the yeast cells. So this is working for me, and I'll probably continue it, however, I will read the articles from the link posted earlier to see if I gain any insight from them.

This is my current inventory. How do others keep track of inventory?


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Labels and a Google spreadsheet.

mtnagel said:

Labels and a Google spreadsheet.

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Nice!


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So if I read this correctly, I make the start as normal with the water and dme and just pitch this as i would the yeast? No extra yeast is needed?

If I'm reading your question correctly, you're talking about after rinsing the yeast, when you're ready to brew another batch with that yeast, what to do, right?

If so, yes, in general you have it, but the key is you need to know how much to add. Check out the "repitching from slurry" tab in Mr. Malty's calculator. Enter in the info and it will tell you how much of the rinsed yeast slurry you need. Let me know if you have questions on it.

Great. Def appreciate that! Gonna start doin this to try it out.

Sure... if you're making a lambic? Maybe you misspoke?

Edit: Nm, I get you now--but yes, washed yeast is yeast, pitch away, but use a calculator like the one at mrmalty.com to get an idea of the volume you need.

And now I see someone said exactly that, because I didn't refresh the page on my phone. So... G'luck!

Lol! No prob. I appreciate all the comments and feed back I can get. Thanks!

I have 8 pints of this washed yeast(White Labs California Ale). I want to use this in another AIPA. How much should I use for 5 gallons? Mr Malty says 233 billion cells needed. And what does 233 billion cells look like?

First determine the yeast concentration. From Mr Malty:

This setting allows you to adjust for how thick a slurry you're measuring. If you've ever seen the yeast packed hard into the bottom of a White Labs vial, that is Thick Yeast at 4.5 billion cells per ml. When you harvest a yeast slurry and it has settled for a few hours, that is a thin slurry. Usually, most homebrewers will let their yeast settle for a few days in the fridge between one batch and the next. When you do, you'll notice the yeast has settled a bit and is sort of jelly-like. That is the default setting on the calculator.

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The default is 2.4 billion/ml. I assume this is obvious, but this is just the stuff at the bottom of your containers. Not the entire volume. You can estimate from the markings on the side or you could use another container that's the same and match the volume of the liquid and then measure that in something that has more graduations.

Then you have to adjust for age. I would use the liquid yeast tab on the Mr. Malty calculator. For example, if it's 1 month old, that would be 77%.

So now we have 2.4 billion/ml times 77% = 1.848 billion/ml.

Then you adjust for the non yeast %. Here's what Mr. Malty says:

You slurry contains more than just yeast. There are coagulated proteins, hop bits, dead cells, and other non-yeast solids in the bottom of your cake. Generally, at least 10% of a slurry is non-yeast material, often closer to 15%. If you can see visible non-yeast material, the amount is probably 25%. It is unusual for yeast harvested from a fermenter to have less than 10% of non-yeast material. You can adjust the setting for non-yeast material that you feel is in your slurry by moving this slider. The default is 15% and that is average for most homebrewers.

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So going with 15% non yeast, you have 85% yeast (in just the bottom part), you have 1.848 billion/ml x 85% = 1.5708 billion/ml.

Since you need 233 billion /(1.5708 billion/ml) = 148 ml.

Obviously you need to adjust based on your age and % yeast but hopefully that gets you started.

If those are pint jars I don't think you're looking at more than 25-50mL. Which is one reason I don't wash. Yeast, I mean.

I don't either, but that doesn't mean I can't help a brother out.

mtnagel said:

I don't either, but that doesn't mean I can't help a brother out.

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Oh, I agree, help away! Mr. Malty is a great start. But as was said earlier in the thread, it's a lot of work to go through for a drastically diminished yield of yeast, I mean those pint jars break my heart. Having to pitch eight jars worth of yeast cake, well... let's just say I'd be buying yeast every time, too, if that were the only way to do it. I don't know who came up with the "make sure you remove your yeast from the trub" thing, but it was probably the same guy who said you should secondary every batch and always use an airlock on everything (that guy is a clown, for the record). A single 5-gal batch should yield about enough cake for two more 5-gal batches, maybe more.

well this will be my first shot at using washed yeast. I'll probably just use all 8 pint jars worth of yeast for my next 5 gallon batch. My stir starter is supposed to be here sometime this week and looks like Saturday could be my next brew day. Was it a lot of extra work washing this yeast? Not really, but it did cost me another 10 bucks for the jars. I won't be saving the "used" yeast for another batch down the road, but who knows what yeast gets washed down the road.......

Have you looked at harvesting from a starter? That's what I do or reuse a small portion of a yeast cake within 2 weeks of brewing.

You could always take what you have and make a big enough starter so you get around ~100 billion extra cells. Then on brew day, split off those cells and save them for the next time you need them and pitch the rest in your beer. That way you won't have to wash the yeast from your next beer because you'd already have it banked.

first things first......like I mentioned above. I'll give the washed yeast a shot and see how my beer turns out. If all goes well, I just may take it to the next level

Makes sense. I know it seems intimidating at first, but once you do it a few times, yeast handling becomes no big deal.

Ah, that was a wonderful how-to! I followed it completely and made my sets of starters last fall and just tried to pitch it into the fermenter on Sunday. I pitched a standard Safale 05 yeast packet (rehydrated and all the correct way) into the other 5 gallon fermenter and that started bubbling within 12 hours. This morning, 2 days later, the reused yeast from my washing just started bubbling--albeit very slowly. What does that tell you about my situation? Is there a period of time where the yeast we washed is most viable? When does it start losing its potency? Thanks!

Less than 2 weeks is best. Making a starter is best if it is longer since you rinsed.

Starting slow isn't necessarily a bad sign. Yeast need to take in nutrients and oxygen and acclimate to their environment, and it takes time.

I am planning to use this method to harvest German Alt Yeast.


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bzwyatt said:

Less than 2 weeks is best. Making a starter is best if it is longer since you rinsed.

Starting slow isn't necessarily a bad sign. Yeast need to take in nutrients and oxygen and acclimate to their environment, and it takes time.

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What's the longest amount of time that the yeast could still be taken out of its dormancy? I still have five starters in the fridge and would like to be able to take advantage of those, but don't want to hassle with them if they won't end up working out anyway.

If I took the refridgerated yeast starts out a couple hours earlier and added a small amount of DME to the decanted yeast and water, would I be able to determine if the yeast is still active?

Thanks!

I've made starters out of yeast I had on the fridge for 6 months. And they were the most aggressive fermentation I've seen. This shouldn't be much different than your situation.


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castroeric said:

What's the longest amount of time that the yeast could still be taken out of its dormancy? I still have five starters in the fridge and would like to be able to take advantage of those, but don't want to hassle with them if they won't end up working out anyway.

If I took the refridgerated yeast starts out a couple hours earlier and added a small amount of DME to the decanted yeast and water, would I be able to determine if the yeast is still active?

Thanks!

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Just like with beer, you should be able to see some signs of fermentation - bubbles, krausen on top, solids from the krausen stuck to the wall of the container higher than the liquid level and the gravity should drop. You might not see all of those, but if the gravity drops, you awoke the yeast.

How hard is it going to be to wash with dry hop gunk in the fermenter

Going to make it more difficult. Would have been better to transfer to secondary and dry hop there and wash the yeast from the primary.

Yea that's what I usually do but my fermenters are all full lol and it's a cake of Conan which is why I'm definitely washing guess I got alil work on my hands

I'd sanitize a mesh strainer and pour diluted slurry through that, that'll get the leafy bits out.

Didn't even think of that looks like that will be what I do thanks for the tip man, next time I will hopefully have my carboy open or accumulated more so I don't run into this problem lol

today I decanted all 6 pint jars and got my yeast starter going. At first I used a turkey baster to remove the liquid, but found it easier to just pour out as much as I could without disturbing the yeast cake and removed the residual with the turkey baster. Collected all 6 jars into one, swirled it up really well and poured it into the flask and now it's on the starter plate. Will brew sometime tomorrow around noonish, giving the yeast starter atleast 18 hours on the stir plate. Sure seemed like a lot of yeast for a 5 gallon batch. Can you use too much yeast?

Why are you using so much?

bzwyatt said:

Why are you using so much?

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if you are asking me, I don't know.