Repitching harvested yeast on a monthly basis, possible?

So what I gather from reading Yeast by Chris White and Jamil, you want to harvest yeast within a day or two after fermentation is done (assuming from the bottom of a conical) and repitch as soon as possible, never later than two weeks afterwards. Or you top crop at high krausen, and repitch as soon as possible. Not sure what the maximum recommended lag time before repitching is here, it seems you would do it like this to get yeast sooner so you can start another fermentation sooner.

So I'll be using a flat bottom fermentor of 1.5bbl and brew once per month. I can either top crop, or rinse the yeast after racking. As I see it my options are:

* Top crop at high krausen, store yeast cold until brewing (25-28 days?)
* Rack the beer as soon as possible, rinse the yeast, store yeast cold until brewing (14 days?)
* Rack the beer as late as possible while storing at fermentation temp, rinse yeast, pitch right away
* Rack the beer as late as possible while storing at cold crash temp, rinse yeast, pitch right away

If even doable, what option would be the best for the yeast? Should I revitalize it before every brew?

ickmund said:

So what I gather from reading Yeast by Chris White and Jamil, you want to harvest yeast within a day or two after fermentation is done (assuming from the bottom of a conical) and repitch as soon as possible, never later than two weeks afterwards.

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That time frame seems pretty extreme to me. I harvest or make extra big starters for storing all the time. I've certainly used yeast that is over 2 weeks old in the fridge (harvested when I bottled) and have not had any issues (off flavors) that I've noticed. The beer certainly fermented completely. At the very least one could make a starter with the yeast if they are afraid 2+ weeks is too long in the fridge. Which you might as well do anyway if you want to keep the yeast around.

Just keep making big starters and keeping the extra yeast alive. Few weeks or couple months go by, then make another starter and build that yeast back up.

I think it would work well to harvest yeast slurry at 14 days from the bottom of the fermenter, store slurry cold for another 14 days and pitch that yeast slurry into your next beer. This would be the easiest, and also reasonable IMO.

the closer to brew day the better. i do 30 gallon batches every 2 weeks and use dry yeasts. what i usually do is pitch the slurry, maybe a tiny less than recommended, then add 1 new packet to keep some new/fresh yeast in the mix.

what ill also do sometimes is put 5 of the 30 gallons into a separate carboy. If for some reason i cant rack, huge dry hop, or need to rack sooner to get to yeast, ill rack the 5 gallon batch into a 2ndary, or into the main fermentor if were dry hopping.

I keep around 20 or so different yeast strains, harvested from starters, in my fridge in mason jars. I always make a new starter for each batch, but the yeast themselves keep for a very long time. I had to take a 4 month break from brewing due to an auto accident and recently I used a yeast I dated back in October 2014, tossed it into a 1.5L 1.040 starter and it was going by the next morning.

I have been top cropping the same US 05 for a very very long time and I brew every 14 - 16 days

been working great for me when I brew a bad batch I will start over with new yeast

all the best

S_M

Cheers guys, much appreciate the input!

Due to travels and my general availability, my optimal workflow would be to rack last months beer the day before brewing again. I doubt autolysis would be an issue, and with a flat bottom the pressure wouldn't be as high, and the temperature more even.

So my thinking is that keeping the wort on the cake is not an issue, and keeping the cake under the beer is not an issue.

So for a normal case beer, I'd do 3-5 days at normal fermentation temp, kick it up a bit for 2-3 days, test that FG is close to expected, possibly dry hop, let the beer sit a week to clean up (and dry hop) and then drop temperature until I can rack.

Would there be a noticable difference in term of yeast health to keep it at 35F in the fermentor compared to rinsed and at 35F in its own storage?

brew_ny said:

I have been top cropping the same US 05 for a very very long time and I brew every 14 - 16 days

been working great for me when I brew a bad batch I will start over with new yeast

all the best

S_M

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Very cool to hear, cheers! So the yeast has been sitting what, 10-12 days, before you repitch? Ever gone longer than that? And do you make a starter or revitalize before repitching?

ickmund said:

Very cool to hear, cheers! So the yeast has been sitting what, 10-12 days, before you repitch? Ever gone longer than that? And do you make a starter or revitalize before repitching?

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I have gone longer, most of the time if I am brewing on schedule it is used in 14 -16 days

I brew ales mostly and go grain to glass in about 10 - 14 days then brew two 11.5 gallon batches a day apart

I can only fit two in my freezer, when I brew I hold back about a quart of the boiled wort

then use it to wake the yeast up, then pitch it all in my wort

so you could call it a starter of sort I just use a gallon glass jar give it a good shake and the yeasts does the rest

it only goes for an hour or so as my worts cools to the pitch temp

all the best

S_M

This will work, but I don't think it's ideal. Your yeast will be stressed. You'll have to worry about harvesting from darker beers, stronger beers, etc.

Putting the yeast in the smaller wort for an hour probably isnt doing much for you. A proper starter would help a lot.

If you can deal with the extra effort, make a starter each brew and store a small part for the next brew. That yeast will be much healthier due to more oxygen, lower abv, less trub to deal with, and it doesn't sit at room temps for a month.

You can also top crop or rinse slurry to make a starter, but in my opinion yeast from a well aerated starter (stirplate) just performs so much better than yeast harvested from a batch or even fresh dry yeast.

wilserbrewer said:

I think it would work well to harvest yeast slurry at 14 days from the bottom of the fermenter, store slurry cold for another 14 days and pitch that yeast slurry into your next beer. This would be the easiest, and also reasonable IMO.

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DITTO's

sowoah said:

This will work, but I don't think it's ideal. Your yeast will be stressed. You'll have to worry about harvesting from darker beers, stronger beers, etc.

Putting the yeast in the smaller wort for an hour probably isnt doing much for you. A proper starter would help a lot.

If you can deal with the extra effort, make a starter each brew and store a small part for the next brew. That yeast will be much healthier due to more oxygen, lower abv, less trub to deal with, and it doesn't sit at room temps for a month.

You can also top crop or rinse slurry to make a starter, but in my opinion yeast from a well aerated starter (stirplate) just performs so much better than yeast harvested from a batch or even fresh dry yeast.

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all very good points indeed myself I top crop only and just dump the yeast at the bottom

sure a starter on a stir plate is good

in the end what I do is what works for me I brew a lot 65 - 11.5 gallon batches in 23 months of brewing

I have given lots of beer to craft beer drinkers and they have said they like it

maybe because it is free or maybe because it is good I don't really know

what I brew I like

all the best

S_M

I was top cropping everything until I had to move my fermentation out to the pump house. Now I harvest slurry using a soup ladle. I just scoop a good ladle full of trub and put it in a plastic jar. It seems to be useable for months. The official procedure if you are going to keep it a long time seems to be to pour off the wort, and add boiled water so the yeast isn't sitting in wort....... and presumably allow it to settle and pour the water off. I've had good luck with every method I've used. My favorite is to just ladle off some trub, leaving some in the fermenter, and racking my fresh wort right onto what's left of the old yeast cake. I try to keep all my fermenters full all the time anyway.

My experience has been that you can get away with a lot more than people would have you believe.

I like the top crop best.........

H.W.

Owly055 said:

My experience has been that you can get away with a lot more than people would have you believe.

I like the top crop best.........

H.W.

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I do like top cropping the best also, but I will brew a British mild and then use the cake for a big porter

like making 11.5 gallon starter and getting beer

all the best

S_M

sowoah said:

This will work, but I don't think it's ideal. Your yeast will be stressed. You'll have to worry about harvesting from darker beers, stronger beers, etc.

Putting the yeast in the smaller wort for an hour probably isnt doing much for you. A proper starter would help a lot.

If you can deal with the extra effort, make a starter each brew and store a small part for the next brew. That yeast will be much healthier due to more oxygen, lower abv, less trub to deal with, and it doesn't sit at room temps for a month.

You can also top crop or rinse slurry to make a starter, but in my opinion yeast from a well aerated starter (stirplate) just performs so much better than yeast harvested from a batch or even fresh dry yeast.

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What he said.

I try to keep the WLP vials and sanitize them with starsan, then dump a tiny bit of yeast and fermented starter liquid back into the vial from my starter. Throw it in the fridge, and use that 10mL of yeast solids for my next starter months later...
The one I just did this weekend was a San Fran Lager yeast that sat in the vial in the fridge for 6 months. Starter started up just fine.

Sometimes I also keep slurry and directly repitch if I am going to use it again soon (month or two max). I'm sure someone will have a coronary over that.

I keep some of the starter on my current batches, and sometimes I harvest from my FFT.

On a 40-45G batch thou, that's a big starter, with either a bunch of steps or quite a few vials.

Also, I wonder, when professional brewers say that the yeast performs the best at/after the third pitch... this is not something you get with harvesting from the starter right?

Sorry, I realize that I didn't specify that I plan to brew the same recipe over and over, perhaps with minor changes. So the yeast will have a chance to acclimate, or so I hope.