I was going to try harvesting the yeast from the primary in a day or too. I used the WL 001 for a double IPA kit. The OG is about 1.081. Is that too high a gravity for saving the yeast? It will be a while before I do something that high again.
homebrewer_99 said:OK. You harvest your yeast AFTER you rack to the secondary. Chances are your gravity is much lower at rack time.
Your gravity has nothing to do with harvesting.
OK, you misunderstand it a little bit. Let me try to clarify it some for you.jerly said:Yeah, that is what I meant. I thought I read about some people not wanting to pitch yeast harvested from higher gravity beers to use on lower gravity beers. Is the only difference going to be that the beer will ferment faster. If thats the case, then I'll be fine with that.
homebrewer_99 said:OK, you misunderstand it a little bit. Let me try to clarify it some for you.
For instance, you wouldn't want to add your pale ale wort onto a dunkel or bock yeast cake. That is true. But you can brew a second batch of the same type of beer and toss it on the yeast cake in the primary.
Harvesting yeast is totally different. When you harvest you are actually removing the yeast cake from the primary and placing it in smaller containers for reuse later. The yeast has been mixed in with the beer from the primary and is very much alive.
To go a step further you can place the harvested yeast from the primary and place it in a gallon jug mixed with about 2 cups of sanitized and cooled water. This is "washing".
When you swirl it around to break up the yeast cake the heavy sediment will fall to the bottom of the jug. The cloud in suspension is yeast. You need to pour this off into another sanitized container and let even more sediment fall out. Because you have added water it is called washing.
I think this is what you really want to do to reuse your yeast. You can always add more water to "wash" the beer/alcohol from the yeast. The clearer the water after the yeast has fallen out the better the wash.
Some people will only wash it once or twice. You will notice the difference in the water color. Some people prefer to leave a of the little beer colored water on top of the yeast to protect it.
I hope that clears things up for you.
homebrewer_99 said:It should be, but without a microscope I can't be certain.
The thing is with washed yeast you can split it into several containers, take a bit if it and make a new starter while saving the rest for later.
As for glycerin and freezing yeast I'd recommend you do more research on the subject. I really can't tell you the process.
jerly said:Yeah, that is what I meant. I thought I read about some people not wanting to pitch yeast harvested from higher gravity beers to use on lower gravity beers. Is the only difference going to be that the beer will ferment faster. If thats the case, then I'll be fine with that.
jerly said:I see. So, could you reuse it for another high gravity beer, or is the yeast too tired/altered no matter what? I'm thinking I should just wait till my next batch.
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