How long can we save Ale yeast in the fridge.

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Alan Reginato said:
Exactly! Thats my point of view! Sometimes I got misunderstood because of that. Keep things simple until you want it to be more complex.

Homebrew is basically a simple hobby.

If you want to have a microbiology lab in you house or like to play industrial process simulation, that's ok! And it's nice! You beer probably will be less prone to infections and other problems than regular homebrew.

There are plenty of interesting equipment and process, usually expensive, but, please, don't tell beginners that they can't make good beer unless they have this or do that.
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Not just in homebrewing but in everything newbie learners should take things slowly. And should follow one source of learning.
Quite often newbies quit when they are overwhelmed with a lot of info at the beginning.
 
BrewingWisdom said:
Not just in homebrewing but in everything newbie learners should take things slowly. And should follow once source of learning.
Quite often newbies quit when they are overwhelmed with a lot of info at the beginning.
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and us old timers been brewing for 20 years need to put a spark back into it! ;)

and yeah there is the blue...

wait now i've gotta get out the pole saw! ;) 🤣

https://www.ebay.com/itm/2245150430...9CNmvbB/BSZCSP9p3OwUHtImZFPz|tkp:BFBMupiSiqRg

but i'm hoping this thread end in % dead yeast cells sitting in the fridge for 'X' amount of days!
 
BrewingWisdom said:
The price for this thing is same on daraz and eBay?
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well i looked up the exchange rate and a Rupee is 195 to 1 USD? so yes? it cost me $16 after tax? and a actual optical scope is only $60 here with 640x magnification if this thing doesn't work....
 
BrewingWisdom said:
that optical scope is expensive.
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i wouldn't call it expensive...just time to gather my thoughts and slow down....

(it's the $5's and $10's they slip in without you noticing that will kill you though)

just play it like this..

1654110765719.png
 
I just did my first starter to test out the stir plate I built. The yeast slurry has been in the fridge for almost a year. How do I tell that it's alive? It's been on the stir plate for almost 2 days. I used fermcap.
 
Ozarks_Mountain_Brew said:
just a few bubbles tells you its good
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wait a second here, aren't we trying to spin the brewing wisdom around? i know i'm having fun with it... lol



and no @BrewingWisdom i'm just having fun, learning brewing from square one, but with the difficulty set to 11 :mug:
 
Oleson M.D. said:
I have a 5th generation Wyeast London Ale. Been in the fridge for one year. Sitting under 10.5% ABV beer.
We were going to dump it, but it has no tell-tale signs of having gone bad.
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Don't blame you.
A few days ago I dumped the content of a good dozen (small) 4 and 8 oz jars containing old saved yeast that had become obsolete. Most were ranched from fresh starters at the time, in 2019 (!), and although a few looked light, bright and clean and smelled fine, some were dark or gray, smelling like burnt rubber. Time flies...

Believe it or not, a few even had the dreaded "I" written on the labels. Maybe at the time I thought I'd use them for some experimental wild fermentations some day, (that never came). :tank:
 
well i got my $15 microscope....and i can say i see cells! they're clear so i need to wait on the methylene blue dye, but for $30 i'll be able to say for sure how long a yeast slurry stays good in the fridge and how viable it stays....i'm uploading a video of the thing with the cells....but the video is 245MB big and i've only got 700kb up speed.....well to hell with waiting for 45 minutes....

here are a couple snaps...

Sat Jun 04 14-46-38.jpg
Sat Jun 04 14-46-41.jpg



those might look like drops of water on the lense, but they are actually what i'm pretty sure are yeast cells floating around, because on live video, they are floating and moving... and i think that clump is what makes this a top fermenting yeast, another question that was asked.....

pretty cool gadget for $15....going to be fun when i get the methylene blue to dye this stuff! should have it monday!

here's a better view of a cell....




Sat Jun 04 14-52-58.jpg



never would i have thought i'd be looking at yeast cells! thanks man! :mug:
 
so this grid is 0.1`mm squares...i know this kinda off topic, but kinda related to how to tell how long yeast is good in the fridge....


Sat Jun 04 16-33-39.jpg


but the little white things are yeast cells right? and although this isn't really good enough for a cell count.....or maybe i just would never in a million years whip out a tally counter to do it......it would be good enough with some methylene blue to tell how viable it was with?

so if i did a smear like this with a slurry saved in the fridge for a month with a couple drops of methylene blue, and too many of those little whit specks turned blue, toss it and pitch fresh?

edit and @BrewingWisdom i'll toss this yeast in the fridge, and take another picture 1 week out with the dye to tell how many cells are alive, 2 weeks, and 3 weeks...for both our benchmarking uses.... :mug:
 
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Viability staining with MB is not worth bothering with, unless done properly, which actually takes more effort than the simplest vitality test, which is required anyway, for a viability test using MB. The (live) cells need to be metabolically active and deflocculated for reliable MB staining and accurate cell counts. Directly assessing stored slurry is a waste of time. Quality of the data is going to be absolutely shite. Trypan Blue is better, but activating the cells and deflocculating them remains necessary. I'd add about 10-20g concentrated slurry to 500ml starter wort. Start MB staining and cell counting after about an hour and then repeat every 3-4 hours, to monitor yeast growth. If the culture hits exponential growth within 12-24 hours it's viable enough, when finished, to step up to about 2.5L. Unless the stored slurry is fresh (< 1 week from fermentation finishing*), make a starter regardless. Viability by itself isn't enough. A crap fermentation - promoting yeast stress and potential off flavours - is achievable by pitching viable cells with low vitality. It's still under pitching.

*Harvesting yeast from a fermentation that finished a week or two before harvesting is already a week or two old and probably benefits from a starter.
 
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bracconiere said:
"that's entertainment!" :mug:
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I always aim to please 😃 But it's true in most cases. A sample of stored slurry, that probably doesn't truly represent the slurry overall, mixed with too much MB* and not observed soon enough under a microscope, is just going to get messy. Making a genuine vitality starter is so much easier and requires as little as a big jam jar and some nutritious be wort. Not much more complicated than making a cup of tea. Even for a queen on her jubilee🤘

*About 0.1% MB mixed with an equal volume of slurry diluted enough to not overwhelm the field of view and be counted with some accuracy is essential. Repeat at least a few times to average out variable eyesight and ability to stay awake.
 
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lumbergh said:
I just did my first starter to test out the stir plate I built. The yeast slurry has been in the fridge for almost a year. How do I tell that it's alive? It's been on the stir plate for almost 2 days. I used fermcap.
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I checked the gravity and it fermented, so Lutra is good in the fridge for a while
 
lumbergh said:
So Lutra is good in the fridge for a while.
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No, not necessarily. Maybe for you, your slurry, fridge and your expectations, but what does 'good' actually translate to? What did you actually do, in terms of making a starter? How does that compare with pitching the same stuff into a batch of FV wort?
 
Based on my own observations, lutra and Voss are both yeasts that started almost without any lag time even after more than six months in the jar in the fridge without any feeding in between. And I've always only used a few tablespoons for a full batch...... I've had a lot of other yeasts fail after less storage time but these kveiks seem to be the most sturdy little fellows I've seen so far.

But I'm with @McMullan here, I'd always make a starter if not pitching directly on the yeast cake from the previous batch. I've had too many mediocre beers that could have been great beers and too many ruined batches due to underpitching because of weak or dead slurries.

Keep in mind that the weaker and older the yeast gets, the more other stuff will be growing in the jar as well. If this mix gets pitched, it's a tough one for the weak yeast to outcompete the other organisms if the numbers of them are already big.
 
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McMullan said:
I always aim to please 😃
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Fun, Fun!
McMullan said:
observed soon enough under a microscope,
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Suspenseful cliffhanger! :mug:
McMullan said:
few times to average out variable eyesight
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i hope this isn't one of those shows where they uninvented the steady cam!


i ordered 1% methylene blue solution, i tried figuring out how many gram to dilute to 0.1%....ended up just saying when i get it tomorrow, i'll grab couple drops of it, a spoonful of the slurry, mix it up watch the clock...wait a minute, then do a smear on this piece of plastic...and not worry about cell counts per-say, just eye ball how many are blue out of the bunch.....

i'll post a pic here, should be fun win or lose...more fun then the $15 equivelent movie ticket!
 
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bracconiere said:
excited to do my first super duper cell count, got the haemogrid thingy printed already! just a week of anxiously waiting for the scope!

View attachment 770530

(the lines are clearer in real life.....just add a known amount of water, count one of the tiny squares...multiply by number of blot...look at dead vs. living cells...

i'll help you be the best brewer ever! honestly, i never gave a f about this! but now that i know i can get a scope for $15, sounds like fun!)
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With your brick of yeast, why bother?
 
McMullan said:
About 1ml in 9ml distilled water from the fish shop.
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for some reason i get the idea the one i bought is sold as a health food though?

and i'm not even really trying to pretend this is a lab...i just want to see if a $15 microscope couple drops methylene blue, usb port...would be as usefull as a iodine thing for a mash....but for a yeast slurry.....


(and yeah 9/56....is .16! thanks for that i spent 20 minutes laughing about how it should be simple! and yet confused out of my mind :()
 
bracconiere said:
well i got my $15 microscope....and i can say i see cells! they're clear so i need to wait on the methylene blue dye, but for $30 i'll be able to say for sure how long a yeast slurry stays good in the fridge and how viable it stays....i'm uploading a video of the thing with the cells....but the video is 245MB big and i've only got 700kb up speed.....well to hell with waiting for 45 minutes....

here are a couple snaps...

View attachment 770832View attachment 770833


those might look like drops of water on the lense, but they are actually what i'm pretty sure are yeast cells floating around, because on live video, they are floating and moving... and i think that clump is what makes this a top fermenting yeast, another question that was asked.....

pretty cool gadget for $15....going to be fun when i get the methylene blue to dye this stuff! should have it monday!

here's a better view of a cell....




View attachment 770835


never would i have thought i'd be looking at yeast cells! thanks man! :mug:
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Sorry for the late reply pal.
I was busy somewhere.
Thanks for those snaps , that's some intellectual stuff right there.
My beer is nearing secondary fermentation in the bottles and soon I will let you know the results. Super excited to try my first ever bootleg beer full of rebellion 😂😂(just kidding)
 
Oleson M.D. said:
I have a 5th generation Wyeast London Ale. Been in the fridge for one year. Sitting under 10.5% ABV beer.
We were going to dump it, but it has no tell-tale signs of having gone bad.
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Every time I get a 1056 I make at least 6 beers out of it. I have at one time made 10 with the same yeast. But I usually don’t take it off in between. I brew one beer after the other continiuous and put each beer on top of the same yeast after racking the previous beer off. I plan beers in advance and work light to dark, weak to strong, the same way judges judge. I brew 3 gallon batches which is about half of what other people are brewing so I like to feel like I’m getting some value out of my $10-$12 pack of yeast by the time they ship it and throw in a freezer pack.

I have saved some off from time to time because I wasn’t ready to brew. I used to use a beer bottle or a wine bottle fitted with a stopper and airlock. Now 1 use a 1L erlenmeyer flask with a stopper and airlock. I don’t have a stir plate or anything special.

I’d agree about a week, after that you need a starter. They sell starter wort now in cans you can buy to make life easy.

I don’t yeast ranch or freeze yeast. I tried it a couple times and ended up contaminated every time. I’m not trying to keep one yeast going indefinitely. The only time I’ve had the urge to do that is when I finally got my hands on a limited release strain that I was after for a long time.

After so many beers I will just dump the yeast and get a new pack. That gives me more options and more variety anyway.

But yes, there is nothing wrong with saving and re-using yeast.
 
You can easily store harvested yeast for up to 30 days at 33 degrees F. Best to use sooner rather than later, however.
It can remain viable for up to three months.
 
Oleson M.D. said:
You can easily store harvested yeast for up to 30 days at 33 degrees F. Best to use sooner rather than later, however.
It can remain viable for up to three months.
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There are no straight and reliable numbers like that. I've had properly stored English yeast fail after two or three weeks in the fridge and I've had kveik slurry that got straight to work after over six months in the jar.

Best is to always make a starter, at least a vitality starter, to check if the yeast is still usable. Unless you have kveik.... Kveik just doesn't care
 
Just reporting our experience over the last 33 years of brewing. Pretty reliable, if stored properly.

We rarely (if ever) use a starter.
 
Miraculix said:
Cool story, exactly that workflow ruined about 5 beers of mine before I changed to always using a starter. Maybe we are using different yeasts.
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Wyeast, W-34/70, Saflager, Diamond Lager, Nottingham, etc. Mostly dry yeasts now.
Never had any issues. The only issue we have experienced was two times there was a diacetyl presence. But that was easily fixed. As stated, best to use within 7 - 10 days of harvesting.
Again, we never use a starter unless it's a first generation liquid yeast.
 
Oleson M.D. said:
Wyeast, W-34/70, Saflager, Diamond Lager, Nottingham, etc. Mostly dry yeasts now.
Never had any issues. The only issue we have experienced was two times there was a diacetyl presence. But that was easily fixed. As stated, best to use within 7 - 10 days of harvesting.
Again, we never use a starter unless it's a first generation liquid yeast.
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All the issues I had were based on liquid yeasts. Dry yeasts seem to be more sturdy in that regard.
 

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