$8 for Wyeast Activator pack !!!!!

[knipknup]

I agree that we have a semi free market where most retailers and manufactors are free to charge whatever the market will bear. And I was happy to pay $6 for my first packet of yeast. But now I could give the stuff away for free and never be in danger of running out.

But the cost to me is a few pennies and a little bit of time.

Please expound on how you are propagating yeast. I have used a wyeast pack 4 times by racking a new wort right on top of the yeast cake in my primary, but the 4th was way too much yeast.

On the other hand, I have read papa-P's chapter in The Complete Joy of Homebrewing, but it is still pretty unclear to me what the best way to store yeast with minimal contamination is.

It sounds like you have a workable method.

Thanks.

 

[brewman !]

Here are some pictures of common home canning autoclaves that are spacious, and not terribly expensive.

I got a woody looking at those and I already have a pressure canner !

This is a timely thread. I just bought a WYeast pack, #3944. $9. FOR A 3 GALLON BATCH ! Not only that, but it wasn't in stock where I live, so its coming from 300 miles away. Luckily my FIL is bringing it this weekend.

I *was* going to harvest some yeast from the fermentor and freeze it with glycerine. Is there a better way ?

I like the look of storing the yeast in the beer bottles and I already have a pressure cooker AND sterilized wort. I'd love to hear more about this before the weekend.

 

[Kaiser]

I *was* going to harvest some yeast from the fermentor and freeze it with glycerine. Is there a better way ?

Looks like we have to get someting about that on the wiki. There are numerous ways of keeping yeast out there. Here are the ones I can think of:

* freezing with glycerin - this seems to be a very elegant method that I haven't tried yet myself. The advantage is that you can store a relatively large culture for a long time. Since the culture is large you will have less chance of contamination when propagating to a full pitch
* keeping a large amount of yeast harvested from the primary - this is what most brewers do, but the storage times are limited to 1 - 3 weeks at most.
* keeping a small amount of yeast from the initial vial/smack-pack - I used that method with success. The vials work much better than the smack packs for this b/c you can easily close them again. I'd say you can keep the samples for about 1-2 months in the frige before to many of the yeast cells died. Since you are working from a small sample, you will have a much lesser content of dead cells once you propagated a pitch of yeast
* keeping yeast on slants - that used to be standard for shipping and storing liqud yeast. The yeast can be kept for many months without going bad
* keeping yeast on plates - it's like slants, but you can better asses the yeasts quality (contamination) and even pick single cell growth (pure) colonies of yeast.

Kai

 

[brewman !]

I really like the sounds of freezing the yeast with glycerin. I want to store my yeasts for 1 year+. I am worried about keeping it sanitary when I harvest it though.

What if one used a small hand vacuum pump and made a fitting that fit over the vial with a suction tube. You could then hand vacuum yeast out of the primary. You could even use a small filter to keep the trub out. If everything was the right plastic, you could just throw it in the pressure cooker to sterilize it.

Ed: how long can you keep yeast viable under beer in a bottle like that ? Weeks, months, years ?

 

[brewman !]

What is the difference between storing yeast under beer and freezing it ? Like why can yeast be frozen for over a year, yet will only keep for months under beer ?

What if one grew a bunch of yeast in a wort starter, poured off 90% of the beer, mixed the yeast sediment with glycerin and froze it. Would that work ?

I've heard people say that its better to harvest the yeast from a starter made from the yeast pack. Is that true ? Would there be any harm in the start base being a sugar/water solution, or should it be sterilized wort ?

I have lots of sterilized wort, but mine has a lot of trub in it... coldbreak ! I should have done it differently when I collected it. BTW: does sterilized wort ever go bad or does it age at all over time ? Nine is 7 years old.

 

[New Brew]

* freezing with glycerin - this seems to be a very elegant method that I haven't tried yet myself. The advantage is that you can store a relatively large culture for a long time. Since the culture is large you will have less chance of contamination when propagating to a full pitch

As a(nother) microbiologist, I'd like to make a couple more comments about this. First, I'd like to preface those comments by stating that I typically work with bacteria, not yeast, and that I've used these techniques in a research setting, not a brewing one. But here I go anyway:
-glycerol (glycerine) freezes are typically small in volume (<= 2mL); they're not so much propagation stocks as they are "seed" stocks. I would think you'd want a couple propagation steps between your glycerol freeze yeast, and your pitching yeast.
-We store our glycerol freezes @ -80*C, and they are indeed stable for a long time (years) at that temperature. Home freezers are something more like -20*C (~0*F), and how much that shortens the viability of a frozen stock I don't know, but it could be significant. I'm sure it's still longer than a slant/plate or just in the fridge though.

 

[BierMuncher]

...it's exceptionally easy !!!!!!... EVEN YOU CAN DO IT.

Hmmm...

Not sure, but it feels a bit like a jab...

Even I can do it?

 

[abracadabra]

Please expound on how you are propagating yeast. I have used a wyeast pack 4 times by racking a new wort right on top of the yeast cake in my primary, but the 4th was way too much yeast.

On the other hand, I have read papa-P's chapter in The Complete Joy of Homebrewing, but it is still pretty unclear to me what the best way to store yeast with minimal contamination is.

It sounds like you have a workable method.

Thanks.

I'll either wash the yeast or take a sanitize spoon and get a spoonful of the kareusen then store it in a sanitized mason jar. Folks here say they've stored it in the refridgerator up to 6 months. You can get small Mason jars with pesto sause or larger ones with spaghetti sause from Classico. Lots of folks use beer bottles or baby food jars. I like the Mason jars because of the wide mouth and the fact that I can get more lids if I need them. "How to Brew" by John Palmer has a good explaination.

 

[brewman !]

Kaiser suggested splitting a yeast pack up and freezing it before pitching part of it.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=24937&page=2

Would that work ?