My First Yeast Washing and Yeast Starter

My last batch of Northern Brewers Cream Ale, I decided to wash the yeast(Wyeast 1056) . Since then I also washed the yeast from their Irish Stout kit (Wyeast 1084).

Well it was time to brew again and I successfully used the Wyeast 1056 that I had previously washed. Made a starter the night before, pitched the next evening and had a vigorous fermentation going. Can't wait to see if I notice a big difference in taste, etc. If anything I saved the $6.75 ($11 local) for another Smack Pac.

My only concern is did I maybe over-pitch on a beer with an OG of 1.040 or is it ok to still do a starter on these lower gravity beers????

Its ok to do one with any beer. There is a great pitch rate calc at Mr. Malty here: http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html

Are most people measuring out their yeast slurry just before they pitch?

With the calculation on MR MALTY...it's stating 73ml of yeast. I figured that whatever I had was what I had...good, bad or indifferent.

Guess I didn't factor in measuring the yeast slurry? If someone else does this I would be interested in their technique.
Thanks Mateo

I poured my last batch directly over a yeast cake left in the primary just last week (the yeast cake was only a few hours without wort on it). I didn't measure the slurry, but you can certainly tell that I "over pitched" the yeast. The fermentation started in an hour and nearly blew the air lock off the bucket lid.

Mr. Malty says to use 125mL (~1/2 cup) of slurry for 5 gallons of wort. I would guess that if I wanted to wash the other 3/4 cup of slurry for some other day and keep only 1/2 cup (all estimated volumes of course) for my current batch I could then have multiple primary's and yeast coming out of my ears since every 1 week in the primary produces more than a cup of slurry.

It begs to question that once you get started with a yeast you like... unless you really mess something up, why buy yeast?

I wash my yeast to separate the trub from the yeast. This is a little more important in making lagers than it is with ales. I split the yeast cake into 3 quart canning glasses which are half filled with sterile boiled water. The week of my brew I agitate the yeast and let it sit for about 5 minutes. Whatever settles out I leave behind. The rest gets decanted into a 1L flask with about 250ml of wort. This goes on the stir plate for 48 hours and then directly into the wort chilled to pitching temps. 11C for my lagers.

When I stop the stir plate I have around 450ml of good yeast viable yeast. The fermentation is always aggressive with this method.