Washed yeast, need help(pic)

I washed my yeast last night and am not sure if I did it correctly or if I should do it again. What are the layers I am looking at. I thought I would only have 2 layers but there seems to be 3 in 2 jars and 4 layers in one jar.

The darker layer looks like trub to me. The creamy light tan is the yeast yoiu are after.

I dont think the trub will hurt if you pitch unless it came from a very hoppy beer. I get some trub when I wash my yeast but not nearly that much.

So the yeast is on the bottom and the trub is on the top?

BWN said:

So the yeast is on the bottom and the trub is on the top?

Click to expand...

No, trub settles first. It's the heaviest.

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

-bn

If you did those last night then you need to shake them back up and seperate as illustrated in the post above.

I'm guessing you might not have waited long enough to let the trub settle out completely. I always pour about a gallon of water into my fermenter, then let it sit for fifteen minutes, then siphon that into a 1 gallon jug, and let it sit for 10-15 minutes, then siphon whats left into three or four mason jars. The second step really helps separate the yeast from the trub. If you're pretty sanitary about it you could probably try washing it one more time in a large sanitized vessel, even a mixing bowl covered with foil then siphon back into sanitized jars.

It will work fine when you pitch it.
Just decant slowly if you just want the yeast,

OR

if you are making the same brew again that you washed this yeast from, pitch the whole thing.

No worries.

I've only washed yeast once, and very recently, but that looks similar to mine after I let it sit too long. If I let it sit too long, the yeast was no longer in suspension in the beer, and made it difficult to pour off - as suggested, shake 'em up and wait 15-20 minutes. What I saved when pouring into the mason jars was what looks like the first two layers in each of your jars. The beer and yeast which are sitting on top of the trub should pour off fairly easily. Once those layers get into another jar, the yeast settles out over time.

The yeast washing illustrated thread helped. When you're done, if it works as well as mine did, you'll get that nice jar with a layer of yeast on the bottom and beer up top

Good luck!

So the middle layer is the yeast, right? So should I try and pour those top 2 layers in big jar with sanitized water and let settle out again. Then disperse into smaller jars? I read the yeast washing thread but think I screwed up a step. I added water to my fermentor then swirled and poured it into a big jar and let separate. I didn't let it separate in the fermentor first. Does that make sense for what I ended up with?

Try agitating your jars then let them settle for 15-20 minutes. Slowly pour this into another container leaving as much of the trub on the bottom as you can. No worries.
This is one of those things that after you do it a few times you can't quite believe you thought it was that difficult in the first place.

Watch the tutorial a few times until it makes sense and clicks. Over thinking some of this beer stuff causes more problems than you could ever cause by not following proper starter protocol.

I hope this isn't thread hijacking but I think it's pretty on topic: if I have a lot of trub (hops and nasty stuff) and I want to wash yeast, all the nasties will settle out?

I want to try washing/harvest this coming weekend but I don't use hop bags with my pellets. Therefore half of my trub is probably pellet bits.

Is it do-able?

Sure. I don't use bags either and wash and collect my yeast for re-pitching at bottling with every brew.

Entirely doable, just takes more patience and you may want to have an extra separation step.

thanks for the replies. I think this is just something I need to practice. I washed it again and it looks a little better. I think next time I will get another big jar to help settle it out a second time.