Yeast washing question

I'm pretty new to home brewing. I was trying to wash a yeast for the first time yesterday and have a few questions. Instead of adding water to the yeast cake to stir up the yeast i just used the beer left on the bottom of the bucket. Poured to a jar, let sit, poured to another, let sit and then poured into sterilized white labs vials. So pretty much, the yeast is sitting in beer rather than mostly water. Is this OK? Will it keep for as long as yeast in mostly water? Also, the beer I took the yeast from was a bourbon barrel porter. Is it ok to save the yeast when there was bourbon added to the beer?

It depends on the OG of the beer that it came from. What was it?

OG was 1.065. Why does the OG make a difference?

You usually add some water so that you don't leave too much brew in the carboy/primary... Gets more into your bottles/kegs that way...

Well, yeast don't really like alcohol, so the level that they're sitting in can make it harder for them to survive. 1.060 is kind of a rule of thumb where they can start to have a harder time, so it's usually helpful to dilute their solution.

Bourbon doesn't really make a difference, other than it can increase the level of alcohol in the solution.

The other thing to consider is how long you're saving your yeast. If it's for a few days, it shouldn't make a huge difference. If it's weeks, then you might want to dilute it.

OK. Thanks for the help!

I presume that you've read through this thread, if not, it may answer a myriad of other questions you might have.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/yeast-washing-illustrated-41768/

Golddiggie said:

You usually add some water so that you don't leave too much brew in the carboy/primary... Gets more into your bottles/kegs that way...

Click to expand...

Absolutely. I make beer to drink and if I'm good with the siphon, there should only be a couple of ounces left.
When washing I like to use a gallon of water to get about 8 pint jars filled.