badhabit
Well-Known Member
I posted something similar a short time ago but have decided to put this up again just because I am at a loss. I have had two batches of yeast that I have washed recently, WLP029 and WLP001 that have acted pretty much exactly the same way. First I get a huge harvest of yeast with little apparent trub from the fermenter. (the better part of half a gal). I wash in the fermenter by adding a half gal of boiled water and let sit a half hout to 45 minutes. I then take off the top half gal yeast slury/trub and let sit about an hour at room temp. I then pour off about the top half into 4 pint jars and refrigerate. I end up with about 2 pints of what appears to be yeast. (The four pint jars each about half full of "yeast" topped by about half wort/beer. The big problem is that there is never any clear seperation between the trub and the yeast. I never get the nice white layer that I typicaly get over the trub. My thought is that I am not washing the trub/yeast enough, that i may not be adding enough water when I first take the material from the fermenter. By not washing with enough water I am not giving the yeast and trub enough "room" to clearly seperate. Anyone have any thoughts or suggestions? I have though about taking what I have in the jars and washing it again with another quart or so of water and seeing what happens different if anything. What are your thoughts about trying that?