Yeast Recovery help?

what is the process to recover yeast out of a conical fermenter? I just made my first bock in it useing a white labs german yeast. would like to save some next time.

You want to make sure you have a sanitized ball valve(dump). I use a sprayer with Starsan. Use a sanitized container that is big enough to catch the dump. If you open the ball valve it should gush out unless you have tuns of sediment in there too. Be careful it comes out fast once it clears any solids. You can decant off yeast if there are a lot of solids.

Tip: The next time you first fill the fermenter with new wort that has trub, let it sit an hour and then dump the trub. Now pitch the yeast. This makes your next yeast collection a lot better as there will not be much trub at all.

Dammit. I've been swearing I'd never want a conical but posts like this are slowly changing my mind.

so--we take the yeast after the bubbling quits? or 1 hr after first putting in fermentor?

I think what he's saying is let the wort sit in the fermentor for an hour after pitching to let the break/hop material fall out, then pull the dump valve.

You would want to pull the yeast once fermentation is done, probably plus a week or so for a lager. This would be the time where you would normally rack to a bright tank or secondary.

WBC was saying that you will probably have a lot of trub in there in addition to yeast. This is mostly cold break. In the future, fill the conical let it get cold (probably a little below your fermentation temp), then 'drop the trub.' Then pitch your yeast. This way (later) when you pull the yeast it will be mostly pure yeast.

Hope this helps.