Putting washed yeast into starter

[Kmcogar]

Ok, so I have a 8oz mason jar of washed yeast. How much to I throw into my starter?
Everything in the whole jar?
Just the stuff on top of the beige colored stuff?
Or everything including the beige colored stuff?
I just want to make sure I do this right. Someone should make a video of pitching there washed yeast into a starter.

Thanks

 

[TyTanium]

Pour the liquid off the top, then throw the creamy/beige slurry into the starter - that's the yeast.

 

[BrewGardenCA]

Yeah, you should see three levels in your jar. The top level will be the left-over beer from your last batch, the creamy beige stuff in the middle is the yeast, the cruddy stuff at the bottom, the left over hops and trub from your last batch.

Ideally, pour off the beer and then pour the yeast in, leaving the trub. Or, pour the beer and yeast in (as long as it's not a lot of beer.) I'd recommend leaving as much "crud" out of your new beer. That said, some folks rack right on top of that stuff and have much success with little off flavours.

Short answer: Try to just pitch the creamy middle yeast layer.

 

[Kmcogar]

10-4 thanks! That's all I needed to know

 

[wolverinebrewer]

Yeah, you should see three levels in your jar. The top level will be the left-over beer from your last batch, the creamy beige stuff in the middle is the yeast, the cruddy stuff at the bottom, the left over hops and trub from your last batch.
Short answer: Try to just pitch the creamy middle yeast layer.

You should only have 2 layers if you do a good job of washing it. Three layers is not normal. Decant the clear liquid and add the thick stuff to your starter.

 

[fxdude]

Not sure anyone really answered your question of how much to pitch. If you go to mrmalty.com and use the pitching calculator, it has a tab for pitching from a yeast slurry which will tell you how much to use

Mrmalty.com

 

[wolverinebrewer]

Not sure anyone really answered your question of how much to pitch. If you go to mrmalty.com and use the pitching calculator, it has a tab for pitching from a yeast slurry which will tell you how much to use

Mrmalty.com

I guess we didn't. I will expand on this a little. Once you open up the Malty yeast calculator, you will need to input the OG of your beer, your quantity in gal., and the harvest date of your washed yeast (this is very important). Then click on the "repitching from slurry" tab. Now, under 'yeast concentration' move that triangle all the way to the right to 4.5. This will tell you how many mL. of just the thick yeast on the bottom you will need. You do not need any of the clear stuff. Then estimate the amount you have in your jar and then make a starter with it. After the starter is finished, let it settle so you can determine the new amount. If its enough, decant and pitch. If you need more than step it up.

 

[Kmcogar]

Can you pitch too much yeast?

 

[fxdude]

Now I'm actually confused. I want to make a starter with washed yeast but the Mr Malty calculator only tells you how much washed yeast to use if you want to pitch directly into a fermenter, it doesn't tell you the size of liters or how much to use in a starter.

 

[pabloj13]

Now I'm actually confused. I want to make a starter with washed yeast but the Mr Malty calculator only tells you how much washed yeast to use if you want to pitch directly into a fermenter, it doesn't tell you the size of liters or how much to use in a starter.

Try Mr. Malty in conjunction with http://www.yeastcalc.com/

Mr. Malty will tell you how many mL of yeast solids you need (and thus how many billion cells you currently have. YeastCalc can tell you how to step it up to get the cell count you need.

 

[fxdude]

Awesome, thanks, that's the other calculator I was looking for.

Not sure if this is correct then. On Mr Malty I entered in my OG which will be 1.050 in 5.5 gallons, yeast was harvested and washed on 1/15/12. I have a fairly thick yeast slurry so I dragged that up to 3.5 and left the non-yeast percentage at default. This gave me a result of 66ml of my yeast slurry needed to get the 193billion yeast cells I'll need to pitch if pitching directly into the wort. That comes out to roughly 2.9billion yeast cells per ml of slurry.

I want to pitch 2 tablespoons of the slurry which is 29.6ml.

29.6ml x 2.9(billion cells) = 85.84 billion cells in my two tablespoons of slurry.

Then in the other yeast calculator I entered my 5.5g and my 1.050 OG which gave me the same 193billion cells needed. Then in the initial cell count I entered my 85.84 which will be my 2 tablespoons of slurry and left the production date today since Mr. Malty already calculated my viability. I'm going to use a stir plate so I entered that and then played with the Starter Volume amount until I got the Total Cells at Finish to be close to the 193 I'll need.

Looks like if I use 0.85L starter (850ml) I'll get my 193 (I'll probably just do a 1 liter starter just to be sure).

Sounds confusing but it makes sense to me, not sure if anyone wants to run those numbers to see if I'm crazy or not. Would be awesome if that gets included in one of the calculators.

 

[mckay75]

Hey...I'm curious how this worked out for you? I'm in a similar situation for a brew I have planned and I'm uncertain how much harvested yeast to use for a starter. The way you calculated makes good sense to me and I'm thinking I'm going to go ahead and follow you method.

Thanks

 

[fxdude]

I've actually been meaning to update this, thanks for the reminder. I just kegged it a little over a week ago so we tried it this weekend. The first thing I have to mention is that when I transferred from the carboy to the keg I noticed the yeast cake at the bottom was close to twice as thick as I'm used to seeing.

The beer itself is a good beer but I'm pretty sure I over pitched on the yeast. Even though it was just the California ale yeast the beer has a much stronger yeast flavor when compared to the batch from the initial pitch.

I think the tricky part is the sliders for the yeast thickness and non-yeast percentage on Mr Malty, it's really just a guessing game on those.

I think next time I'll try at least 2/3 of what I pitched, I could probably even go with half. It's definitely a tricky game when trying to make a starter from washed yeast.

Good luck and let me know what results you come up with.

 

[fxdude]

I should also mention that the beer finished slightly on the drier side, I'm guessing because there was so much yeast they just ate every little thing up.

 

[midfielder5]

The first thing I have to mention is that when I transferred from the carboy to the keg I noticed the yeast cake at the bottom was close to twice as thick as I'm used to seeing.
The beer itself is a good beer but I'm pretty sure I over pitched on the yeast.

Looking back at your posts, I think you would have needed 66ml (~4 1/2 tablespoons) to get 193 billion of pitchable yeast. You took 2 tablespoons and made a 0.85L starter.

> I would have taken the 4 1/2 TSP of slurry, and added like 1/2 a cup (not scientific) of my wort taken during the boil (chilled first) and spun this on my stir plate to wake 'em up (not to increase the number); then pitched. It might be called a real wort starter (RWS), if you search around here.
YMMV. good luck!

 

[fxdude]

You are correct, I actually almost went with just pitching the 4.5 tablespoons but hadn't seen very many posts about taking washed yeast and growing it in a starter (rather than just waking it up).

That way instead of just getting three batches out of the amount of second generation yeast slurry I had I'd be able to get around six. Then for the third generation instead of getting around 9 batches I'd be able to get 15-18 and so on.

I'm definitely not going anywhere near that far with my yeast but I find the whole yeast lab, storing, and reusing very fascinating.

I would love to try a batch with just a direct pitch of second generation washed yeast, washed yeast multiplied in a starter, and directly dumping a new wort on top of a yeast cake. There are so many variables that would be hard to control but it all interests me.

 

[Brew-boy]

Mrmalty.com

 

[mckay75]

I've actually been meaning to update this, thanks for the reminder. I just kegged it a little over a week ago so we tried it this weekend. The first thing I have to mention is that when I transferred from the carboy to the keg I noticed the yeast cake at the bottom was close to twice as thick as I'm used to seeing.

The beer itself is a good beer but I'm pretty sure I over pitched on the yeast. Even though it was just the California ale yeast the beer has a much stronger yeast flavor when compared to the batch from the initial pitch.

I think the tricky part is the sliders for the yeast thickness and non-yeast percentage on Mr Malty, it's really just a guessing game on those.

I think next time I'll try at least 2/3 of what I pitched, I could probably even go with half. It's definitely a tricky game when trying to make a starter from washed yeast.

Good luck and let me know what results you come up with.

Doh!! Just a little late reading your reply...dang. I followed the steps you posted. I was making a IIPA...OG was 1.088. I used 5 tbsp of harvested yeast and made a 2L starter with it...decanted some of the beer off the top and then pitched it. Should be interesting to say the least....confusing stuff working with harvested yeast (to me anyway). Thanks for taking the time to post a followup. I'll make a point to let you know how mine made out.

Thanks!

 

[mckay75]

wow! That didn't take long! I pitched the yeast around 10 PM last night after shaking the crap out of the wort...and its boobling already! Go yeasties!

 

[fxdude]

That's cool, I'm definitely curious to see how it turns out.

One thing I did that I would change is that I usually primary for three weeks with no secondary, because of the large amount of yeast I probably should have pulled it off the yeast after two weeks.

 

[mckay75]

Checked my gravity last night after 2 weeks...and it was down to 1.012! Going to check again tonight to see if its the same and will rack and dry hop if so. The sample was delicious!

 

[fxdude]

That's great news, people still seem to enjoy the blonde I made with the washed yeast even though I can tell it's a little heavier on the yeast flavor.