Should I Use This Yeast?

[kiblerjd]

I had a thread going on this a while back but did some more experiments and a picture is worth a thousand words. I brewed a beer one month ago today and washed the yeast. I let it really settle out well and only collected the yeast that was still suspended thinking that is the healthiest stuff. This yeast was harvested from the primary 7 days into fermentation.

After it settled out really well in the mason jar I dumped off most of the liquid and put it back in the vial just to get an idea of how much yeast was actually in there. Turns out I harvested exactly what comes in a new tube of yeast.

So my question is, if I make a 1L starter should this be enough yeast to get me going for a 5 gallon batch with OG of 1.055. I have washed yeast a few times but never used it because it makes me nervous for some reason. There is guidance out there that you need 10x the original amount in the vial but I feel like that is way over kill.

Any advice would be appreciated. There isn't a drop of trub in this container. When I washed I was going for quality not quantity.

 

[MachineShopBrewing]

punch it into mrmalty.com and see how big of a starter to make. Your yeast will not be as viable as the yeast you buy from White Labs as they take great pains to make the yeast as healthy as possible when they put it in the vial to ship out to homebrew shops.

 

[EarlyAmateurZymurgist]

Any advice would be appreciated. There isn't a drop of trub in this container. When I washed I was going for quality not quantity.

And in the process, you removed a source of lipids and zinc as well as the force field that protects the culture from infection.

 

[kh54s10]

Make a small weak starter and see what happens. 250 ml of 1.020 or so. Then you can step it up. I freeze 5 ml yeast with 5 ml glycerin and 10 ml water, then use stepped starters to get it going for a new batch. I have used yeast samples that were stored in the freezer for more than a year.

mrmalty.com and yeastcalc.com have good information and calculators for making starters.

If you don't use it send it to me. I'd give it a try!

 

[kiblerjd]

here is another related question instead of starting a new thread. This is the second time this had happened to me. I washed some yeast yesterday and didn't use a ton of water and it seems like the yeast settled out below the trub. Not really sure why this would happen. I may just pitch the whole jug into my next batch. Having a hard time with this one. Washed yesterday tossed it in the fridge and I'm brewing this Friday.

 

[kiblerjd]

Well I have been thinking about this all day and i'm pretty sure i'm going to use the big jar in the second picture for my batch next Friday based on that fact that it is more fresh and there is more of it.

My biggest concern is the fact that I can't tell which layer the yeast is. I'm almost positive its the bottom layer but that doesn't make sense. To deal with that, and the fact that I don't really want to risk playing with it anymore, I think i'm going to just keep letting it settle and on Wednesday i'm going to make a starter. I'll just decant the beer/liquid layer and throw everything else into the starter.

What is the worst that can happen.... ohh yeah I guess I could ruin my 5 gallon batch of beer.

 

[kiblerjd]

hahahaha. I'm not sure that anyone cares but I completely changed my mind again. I looked at the Mr. Malty calculator again and assumed that I had a fairly thin slurry with a fairly high non-yeast percentage and it said use around 200ml of slurry. So I dumped off that top layer of darker stuff, and poured 200ml of the lighter stuff into a container and that is what i'm going to use. I don't know why this situation makes me so nervous but here goes nothing.

 

[MachineShopBrewing]

Don't worry too much about it. It will make beer.

 

[brew_ny]

Don't worry too much about it. It will make beer.

truth to that

S_M

 

[kiblerjd]

Ok I swear this is my last question. I let the yeast settle out overnight and I think this is actually pretty think slurry now. So on mr malty if I assume 75% viability and 3.0/4.5 thickness and 25% non-yeast it tells me to pitch 100ml. That number is without a starter. So should I do a starter or not. Or should I just pitch the whole jar and let her rip.

 

[kiblerjd]

I hate reading threads where it just kind of ends and the person that started it never comes back and reports the results. So if anyone stumbles on this, I made a starter with about 200ml of that last jar of yeast and used it to brew. The starter was done within a few hours. The beer fermented pretty much normally and it turned out amazing. I'm now a yeast re-user for life.

And for what its worth I didn't boil the water I used to wash the yeast or the jars. I just used star san and didn't go crazy and it worked perfect.

 

[kiblerjd]

Just curious but does anybody just collect everything at the bottom of the fermenter and use that instead of going through the washing process?

This is everything from the bottom of my primary and it doesn't look that bad to me. I'm thinking if just using it in my next batch. Thoughts?


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[Gorms]

I pitch on a slurry all the time. I don't know if I would use all of that though, maybe about 1/3 depending on how old it was. I use about 1/3 of that with good results. But it's usually no more than a day old.


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[PleasantValleyHops]

Just curious but does anybody just collect everything at the bottom of the fermenter and use that instead of going through the washing process? View attachment 179704

This is everything from the bottom of my primary and it doesn't look that bad to me. I'm thinking if just using it in my next batch. Thoughts?


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I just brewed Thursday with yeast I did the exact same thing with. Had substantial airlock activity within 8 hrs. My yeast was approx 3 weeks old from the time I dumped it was harvested to my next brew day

Pleasant Valley Hops inc.
Carroll Brewing Company
Frederick Md

 

[kiblerjd]

Awesome. That jar is a 1.5 cup jar and i was planning to use a cup but i bet 1/2 cup would work too. I'm finding there are a lot of threads out there about this. I like the idea of not having to make a starter and i really like the idea of not washing yeast. I have only done a few batches with washed yeast but this method seems way less risky to me. This also seems to bea heated debate on some threads but i don't care. I'm looking to simplify the process and i'm fine with being as scientific as saying "pitch one cup of this stuff into your beer". Is 1/2 to 1 cup a good amount?


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[FoamFollower]

I'm glad you reported back. Learning something here...

 

[kiblerjd]

I pitched 1 cup of this into my brew. That is what Mr. Malty calculated with the highest non-yeast percentage and the thinnest slurry. It also seems to be pretty consistent with what other brewers do.

If all goes well I really like this practice but from what I'm reading I should probably wash the yeast if I'm not going to use it for a few months. In this case I got this slurry two weeks ago so I'm sure I'm fine. Anyone have an opinion on how long you can store straight slurry in a fridge before it goes bad?

For what its worth I'm pretty confident I get very minimal hot break and hop debris from my kettle into my fermenter. I have a fairly good process so the slurry looked pretty darn good. Should be pretty much cold break and yeast and that's about it.

 

[eastoak]

I pitched 1 cup of this into my brew. That is what Mr. Malty calculated with the highest non-yeast percentage and the thinnest slurry. It also seems to be pretty consistent with what other brewers do.

If all goes well I really like this practice but from what I'm reading I should probably wash the yeast if I'm not going to use it for a few months. In this case I got this slurry two weeks ago so I'm sure I'm fine. Anyone have an opinion on how long you can store straight slurry in a fridge before it goes bad?

For what its worth I'm pretty confident I get very minimal hot break and hop debris from my kettle into my fermenter. I have a fairly good process so the slurry looked pretty darn good. Should be pretty much cold break and yeast and that's about it.

months. in my case i've pitched 8 month (might have even been older) old slurry with no starter and the fermentation was normal in every respect.

 

[eastoak]

that was unwashed slurry, i never wash yeast.

 

[Fid]

I had a yeast cake sitting at the bottom of a carboy for about 4 months that had maybe an inch of beer sitting on top of it. I transfered it to a mason jar when I finally got around to cleaning it out and brewed a brown ale that I split between two fermentors. 2.5 gallons pitched with a fresh yeast pack and 2.5 gallons pitched with the old, funky stuff. They turned out quite different from one another and i think the fg on the old yeast version ended up about 6 or 8 points higher than the fresh yeast. I had originally planned on kegging each separately so I could taste them side by side but an unexpected move across the country altered my plans and I ended up blending the two in one keg. I'm currently sitting in the sunshine enjoying this delicious frankenbier while I type this.

I say go for it! Pitch away!

 

[kiblerjd]

that was unwashed slurry, i never wash yeast.

I assume you stored it in the refrigerator correct?


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[kiblerjd]

I had a yeast cake sitting at the bottom of a carboy for about 4 months that had maybe an inch of beer sitting on top of it.

Do you think the results would have been different the yeast had been stored in a refrigerator?

On thing I don't understand about those that say you shouldn't store yeast slurry for long periods without washing it, is that you can leave a beer in a fermenter for months with no issues. So I would think cold storage would make it last even longer. I don't claim to really have a clue what I'm talking about here though.


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[eastoak]

I assume you stored it in the refrigerator correct?


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yes. i no longer store yeast for long periods unless it's a very rare yeast or sour bugs. i either use dry yeast or time my brew day to coincide with a fresh yeast cake.