"washing" from a starter?

I am looking to brew 2 different recipes (5 GAL ea.) in the next few weeks and I intend to use the same yeast strain for both of them. I currently have one smack pack of said yeast on hand. I will pitch a starter, and am wondering if I can "wash" the yeast from the starter rather than waiting for the end of the first fermentation. Basically I am trying to get 2X yield from the smack pack and then divide it.

Here is what I am thinking.... Go through the normal smack pack activation, pitch a starter, let it ferment and populate, crash it, decant it, go through the typical washing process, and end up with 2 or more "washed" populations with which to begin the starters for both of the future batches.

Any thoughts or concerns? The fact that I don't find any results for this through numerous searches concerns me...I can't be the first guy to think of this, but I am inexperienced enough that I fear it may be a dumb question.

I know there are other ways to approach this (e.g. wash after primary, buy another smack pack), but where is the fun in that? Looking for a bit of flexibility and $ savings, that is all.

why would you need to wash a starter? I would just make 2 large starters and pitch half a pack of yeast in each. once fully fermented keep in fridge until needed.

Messing around with it any more will just increase your possibility of infection.

Well I only have one Erlenmeyer Flask, so I guess I didn't think about dividing the pack in to 2 starters.

I suppose, to simplify, I could just pour half of the starter in to a fridge jar and pitch the other half in to the wort. Skip the washing process and just put half of it to sleep for a bit.

Perhaps I was over complicating it, but I guess the root of the question is still valid, can we propagate/multiply yeast outside of the main batch?

I agree with bob. Just make a double sized starter pitch half and retain the other half for the next batch. Or step the second half up again and pitch half and save other half for a rainy day.

GilSwillBasementBrews said:

I agree with bob. Just make a double sized starter pitch half and retain the other half for the next batch. Or step the second half up again and pitch half and save other half for a rainy day.

Click to expand...

That makes sense, I guess I was thinking of stepping them both up again to increase the counts. What I am hearing from both of you is that there is no need to go through the washing process though. Just grab some sanitized jars and split the starter.

I got a 2L flask in case i ever brew a big monster. Most of the time ill pitch about 1L and get 2-3 mason jars full of starter. Its like having unlimited yeast with the exception of using a lot of DME. I think its worth it because even with new yeast ill still make a starter

This is quite a good explanation.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/entries/yeast-harvesting-novel-approach.html

@El Caro. That is exactly what I was looking for. Thankfully there are people like you who can still outperform search engines.

Looks interesting. I wonder how long you can store the yeast under beer as opposed to water.
I seem to remember Jamil saying when he washed yeast he would store the slurry with a little beer on top and then wash it when he is ready to grow up a starter.

4Corners2Rise said:

I am looking to brew 2 different recipes (5 GAL ea.) in the next few weeks and I intend to use the same yeast strain for both of them. I currently have one smack pack of said yeast on hand. I will pitch a starter, and am wondering if I can "wash" the yeast from the starter rather than waiting for the end of the first fermentation. Basically I am trying to get 2X yield from the smack pack and then divide it.

Here is what I am thinking.... Go through the normal smack pack activation, pitch a starter, let it ferment and populate, crash it, decant it, go through the typical washing process, and end up with 2 or more "washed" populations with which to begin the starters for both of the future batches.

Any thoughts or concerns? The fact that I don't find any results for this through numerous searches concerns me...I can't be the first guy to think of this, but I am inexperienced enough that I fear it may be a dumb question.

I know there are other ways to approach this (e.g. wash after primary, buy another smack pack), but where is the fun in that? Looking for a bit of flexibility and $ savings, that is all.

Click to expand...

What I do, when I do this is take a mason jar and fill it 1/3 - 1/2 way with distilled water and then run it through the pressure cooker to sterilize it and let it cool at least over night. I make sure my starter is big enough to be able to decant off a couple hundred ML and still have enough yeast for the beer on deck.

Then when the starter is finished I open the mason jar and pour off enough starter into it to bring it 95% full. Then the jar and starter both go into the fridge to settle out and be decanted when I use either. The main reason I add distilled sterilized water is to remove airspace from the jar and I don't normally want to use 500ml of my starter.

However I got tired of having dozens of jars of yeast in my fridge and it was pissing my wife off, so I've started shifting to slants for my yeast banking.

HopOnHops said:

I got a 2L flask in case i ever brew a big monster. Most of the time ill pitch about 1L and get 2-3 mason jars full of starter. Its like having unlimited yeast with the exception of using a lot of DME. I think its worth it because even with new yeast ill still make a starter

Click to expand...

DME is expensive here, $18 for 3lbs which will only make 14L worth of 1.037 OG starter. I've started offsetting this by collecting third runnings from the mash of higher gravity beers (1.071+). I can generally get in the 1.030 - 1.036 range with just a little boil down to volume or DME addition.