Yeast-washing test-run.

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slym2none

"Lazy extract brewer."
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OK, experimenting with washing some yeast. I bottled my Blonde on Tuesday night, and after I effectively got all the beer off of the cake on the LBK, I dumped about 2 cups of water I had boiled in a Mason jar into the LBK, swirled it around, and poured out everything into the Mason jar.

DAX1hzh.jpg


Now what? This is after two days in the fridge, & I don't see three distinct layers. All I see is diluted wort & trub. Where's the yeast???

:confused:
 
If you look carefully, you will see there is a slightly lighter layer on the top of the solids. That is the layer you are suposed to be trying to separate and keep.

On the rare occasion I wash (I usually just use all the slurry), I pour the trub into a 2 quart mason jar, fill with water and swirl. let settle until I see a distinct separation near the bottom of the jar and pour off an collect the ajority of the liquid leaving the solids behind. I let this collected liquid clear, pour off the clear liquid and save the 'washed' yeast at the bottom. I will also re-fill the original jar and let separate again, and collect the top from this,

For the most part I like to try and filter the wort going into the fermenter, collect the yeast/trub, and re-use roughly a quarter to a third of the slurry as a straight pitch into the next batch - no washing, no starter. I'll happily use this method up to a couple of months from collection.
 
Well, I have had this sitting out at room temp for a couple hours, seems there is "growth" happening along the top of the trub. Seems there is some yeast there after all, I must have let it settle & cold crash too long.

I am using this for my Oktoberbeast Ale I am brewing now - got some Vienna & some Munich in a mini-mash, will add some DME & get going on this later! (still 1 hour to go into the 90-minute mash)

BTW - this is Nottingham yeast, I don't think I mentioned yet. Nothing really worth a damn, but I did say it was an experiment for me, as I am trying something new.

Anyone want to guesstimate how much of this yeast I need to add to a 2.4 gallon batch? 1/4? 1/3 of it?
 
Lately I've seen more and more convincing arguments that yeast washing is at best extra work of dubious benefit and at worst harmful to yeast health. See the sticky at the top of this forum.
 
Lately I've seen more and more convincing arguments that yeast washing is at best extra work of dubious benefit and at worst harmful to yeast health. See the sticky at the top of this forum.

That's helpful, thanks.

yeahok.gif
 
Maybe it's not helpful to you, but hopefully it can help others who read this thread while researching yeast-washing.

The three replies you've gotten have basically told you that A: it's extremely difficult to discern trub from yeast when harvesting, and B: that yeast washing is no longer widely considered necessary or good practice.

If you're not getting the answer you want, it's probably because you're asking the wrong question.
 
It's not a case of "not getting the answer I want". I said from the start that this is an experiment, it is something I wanted to try and be familiar with.

Here, here are the questions I asked:

"Where's the yeast?"

"Anyone want to guesstimate how much of this yeast I need to add to a 2.4 gallon batch? 1/4? 1/3 of it?"

I don't see how your posts are answering these, and I can't see how they would ever be "the wrong question".

:)
 
It's not a case of "not getting the answer I want". I said from the start that this is an experiment, it is something I wanted to try and be familiar with.

Here, here are the questions I asked:

"Where's the yeast?"

"Anyone want to guesstimate how much of this yeast I need to add to a 2.4 gallon batch? 1/4? 1/3 of it?"

I don't see how your posts are answering these, and I can't see how they would ever be "the wrong question".

:)

To figure out how much yeast you would need for a given batch, just use a yeast pitching calculator to figure the total number of cells. Now, different sources will state that compacted yeast can contain anywhere from 1-5 billion cells/mL. I err on the side of caution, and use Wyeast's recommendation of 1.2billion cells/mL. I would rather overpitch than underpitch. I can then use this value to roughly calculate how much yeast I have in my mason jar, plug that number into the yeast calculator, and make the appropriate starter.

Im a big fan of washing yeast. I havnt had to buy 1056 or 1968 in 6 months. I brew othen, too.
 
OK, round 2 - now my question is, what's the white layer on top? In this pic, from the bottom up, I see trub, some hops (because even though it was only 1/4 oz, I did dry-hop the beer this came off of) then the next layer is the yeast. So, what is that white layer on top? When I move the jar, the three bottom layers stay put, but the white stuff moves around.

Just curious, as either way, it looks like I have a ton of yeast to work with again. TIA!

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Thanks! So, nothing to worry about. That's, well... what I was worried about!

:)
 
Well, this is what I ended up with - the bottom is pure yeast:

kSpqRYn.jpg


It's just an 8-oz jelly jar, but that's enough for at least 3 of my 2.5 gallon batches' worth of yeast, I am guessing.
 
Looks good. I just pour the beer and yeast from the fermentor into a quart jar for my harvests. (Hop debris was filtered out during the pour into the fermentor.) I estimate 2 billion cells per ml for repitching, and I think that is an under estimate. You could probably go with a higher cell count for your harvest.

Before I had pints and quarts marked in milliliters, I marked a couple jars in 50 ml increments by adding water in 50 gram increments. Helped with eyeballing how much yeast I had.
 
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