Washing Yeast for the First Time

I just racked my Cascadian Dark Ale into my secondary to dry hop and I want to keep my yeast to use in future batches.

I've followed the tutorial sticky in the forum but my yeast doesn't look quite the same. However, I don't think the yeast is separating properly from the trub.

See attached pic. Any ideas what to do? It's been sitting for an hour.

Thanks

First of I just started washing yeast myself. Did you add enough water? that looks like a awfully lot of trub. I might try to add more water and shake hard. The extra water might give you a little more space between the trub and yeast.

Thanks! I just added more water and I can see a nice clean layer. When in doubt... add more water!!!

make sure you wait no longer and no less than 20 mins. Don't put it in the fridge untill after you have seperated/poured into the 2nd set of small jars. Keep the pics comin!

You will have better luck washing yeast from a simple brew...lower OG and less hops. High grav and high hop beers change the yeast you get and all the trub makes it hard to get seperation (as you well know!) For example, I usually harvest my 1056 from my cream ale or simple pale ale recipe then use the washed yeast to brew bigger and hoppier beers. You want to harvest from light and simple brews rather than darker and more complex.

What was the recipe? Yeast strain? Is all the trub hop particles or did you strain the wort? If you have a lot of trub vs yeast you will find it difficult to get this clean and it has the potential to impart flavors and colors to subsequent brews.

Keep us updated on how it goes and Good luck

The OG of the batch was around 1.042 and there were 2.5oz of hops with a 60 min boil.

I added more water and it separated perfectly. I'll wait till my next batch to see if any flavours were picked up by the yeast.