Never wash your yeast again!!!!

Hello all!!!
I'm kinda new here having only brewed 5 of my own beers, but I have to say I have defiantly picked up a few good tips here so I thought I would give one of my own for all to share!!

I just read another thread about washing your yeast for a future brew! I tried that washing thing once or twice and found that it really was a pain in the ass!! Yes you do get 4 or 5 jars of good yeast but all the work you have to do is hardly worth the effort!!! Plus you can only store the yeast for so long without the worry of it going bad!!

Here is my simple, I'll repeat the "SIMPLE" solution for yeast harvesting!!!

DON'T DO IT!!!!!!!!!!!!


You herd me!!!

Follow these easy steps for a never ending supply of FRESH yeast!!!


1 buy your favorite liquid yeast!!

2 make a starter with it using 2 cups of boiled then cooled water and half cup of DME!

3 let it sit for 2 or 3 days, shaking it every now and then!

4 add 2 more cups of boiled then cooled water and half cup of DME!

5 let that sit for another 2 days shaking occasional!

6 the day you plan on brewing, shake the starter well, mixing everything well then split the mixture in 2 by pouring half into a mason jar (sanitized of course!!!) and using whats left for you brew!!

YOU CAN'T GET ANY EASIER THAN THAT!!!

you don't need to empty out a 6 gallon carboy!! you do not need to boil gallons of water, don't need to sanitize 4 or 5 jars, don't need to wait for the trub to settle out!! don't need room to store 4 or 5 jars!!!

The half of starter you have left will be plenty for you to repeat the process, ensuring you never have a 4th or 5th gen batch of yeast( that is when it all starts to go bad I herd!!!) At the most half of your started will be a 2nd gen, if you want to call it that having never been used to ferment anything other that the 1/2 cup dme for the starter!!! the other half will be a fresh batch of yeast newly produced ready to go!!!

I tried this the last batch I made and I had an explosive fermentation on the next day!!

I will not take credit for this type of yeast propagation, I read it on a forum somewhere!!!, but I will gladly pass it along for all the other newbies out there to use!!!!!!!!

HAPPY BREWING!!!!

BADBEER

You will find there are a lot of people here who do that, to preserve the strain for future brews. Every time I make a starter I save some.

However, I would argue with you about "YOU CAN'T GET ANY EASIER THAN THAT!!!". I recently racked 6 gallons of Pale Ale, and poured 3 pints of the slurry into 3 separate sanitized mason jars. It is no effort to sanitize the jars since I always have sanitizer handy. Within 2 weeks I had used it all; 1 pint went into a 3 gallon batch of Berliner Weisse (needs to be pitched at about 2X normal beers), Half of one of the others went into an experimental 3 gallon IPA, and the third pint was pitched into a new 6 gallon batch of Pale Ale.

I did not wash the slurry, just drained the liquid and pitched straight from the mason jars; No starter to build up, no starter wort to make, no swirling or shaking, no crashing the starter, no concerns about contamination of the original strain. How much time, effort, and cost would it take for you to build up starters for all three of those batches; I spent about 5 minutes, and zero cost on them.

There is a benefit to reusing yeast for the same recipe. If your yeast management and sanitation skills are good then the yeast should perform better for subsequent batches as they become acclimated. I've read that professional brewers report the best performance doesn't come until after the 6th repitch.

Ideally you should use sterile equipment for yeast propagation. Whenever you handle the yeast you are introducing contaminants.

I've never boiled gallons of water to rinse my yeast. Washing involves acid, so why boil gallons of water.
How do you calculate your pitch rate?
When I rinse my yeast I start with a quart of slurry. Then it is concentrated into two pint jars. An hour later the yeast is in a one pint jar roughly marked in milliters to have an idea of volume.

Calder said:

I did not wash the slurry, just drained the liquid and pitched straight from the mason jars; No starter to build up, no starter wort to make, no swirling or shaking, no crashing the starter, no concerns about contamination of the original strain. How much time, effort, and cost would it take for you to build up starters for all three of those batches; I spent about 5 minutes, and zero cost on them.

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The first post definitely needs more exclamation points! There aren't enough! They are an underused punctuation symbol!

Anyway, this is what I do now. I don't rinse the yeast cake. I pick up the fermenter once the beer is racked out, and pour the slurry into 3 or 4 mason jars. One pint jar is usually enough for 10 gallons, but I do use mrmalty.com's yeast pitching calculator to make sure.

There isn't any work at all involved, and no trouble at all. I generally get 5 10 gallon batches out of that, if I don't save future yeast cakes the same way. If I save the future cakes as well, I would save much more $$$$ but I only have enough room in my yeast fridge for about 10 jars of saved slurry.

A little more work involved: Make a starter larger than you need for your batch. Make 4 (or what you want) vials for freezing. I use 20 ml vials. I take 5 ml yeast 5 ml glycerin and 10 ml water. Mix them up and refrigerate. A few hours later shake them again and freeze. I have mine surrounded with freezer packs to counteract the defrost cycle.

It takes a step starter, but I have used yeast frozen for about 2 years successfully.

If you do 4 new vials from each frozen one you could go 4 generations and brew 256 times from the original purchase.

kh54s10 said:

A little more work involved: Make a starter larger than you need for your batch. Make 4 (or what you want) vials for freezing. I use 20 ml vials. I take 5 ml yeast 5 ml glycerin and 10 ml water. Mix them up and refrigerate. A few hours later shake them again and freeze. I have mine surrounded with freezer packs to counteract the defrost cycle.

It takes a step starter, but I have used yeast frozen for about 2 years successfully.

If you do 4 new vials from each frozen one you could go 4 generations and brew 256 times from the original purchase.

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I have found freezing yeast is not worth the effort. I have frozen several yeasts, however, I've not had a need to revive any of them. I find the samples I take from starters keep fine. Last weekend I woke up a starter sample of WLP550 that I took 29 months ago. I was surprised to find it going strong within 24 hours. I store my starter samples in distilled water.

Ya mean like this:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/entries/yeast-harvesting-novel-approach.html

Yooper said:

The first post definitely needs more exclamation points! There aren't enough! They are an underused punctuation symbol!

Anyway, this is what I do now. I don't rinse the yeast cake. I pick up the fermenter once the beer is racked out, and pour the slurry into 3 or 4 mason jars. One pint jar is usually enough for 10 gallons, but I do use mrmalty.com's yeast pitching calculator to make sure.

There isn't any work at all involved, and no trouble at all. I generally get 5 10 gallon batches out of that, if I don't save future yeast cakes the same way. If I save the future cakes as well, I would save much more $$$$ but I only have enough room in my yeast fridge for about 10 jars of saved slurry.

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Yooper, have you described this somewhere on some sticky? You should if this is all you do.

Of course you clean the mason jars. Starsan or boil?

The slurry cold crashes and you you pour out some of the water on top?

Don't you get some trub in your slurry? No worries on that?

Do you only re-use the yeast on similar beers?

Do tell please.

... I've been using laundry soap to wash my yeast this whole time... :/

you know what's easier, buying yeast at the store since your already there to pick up the grains

Interesting


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

F_R_O_G said:

you know what's easier, buying yeast at the store since your already there to pick up the grains

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Depends on your goals. For me home brewing is just as much about saving money as it is about making my own beer.

I generally get 5 10 gallon batches out of that, if I don't save future yeast cakes the same way. If I save the future cakes as well, I would save much more $$$$ but I only have enough room in my yeast fridge for about 10 jars of saved slurry.

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Yooper
How long is this slurry good for? Are you able to just dump it into the fermenter at the end of that period of time?

badbeer said:

Hello all!!!
I'm kinda new here having only brewed 5 of my own beers, but I have to say I have defiantly picked up a few good tips here so I thought I would give one of my own for all to share!!

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No thanks!

mblanks2 said:

Yooper
How long is this slurry good for? Are you able to just dump it into the fermenter at the end of that period of time?

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I use a yeast pitching calculator (mrmalty.com has a slurry option) but if I store it more than a couple of weeks, I always make a starter. I tend to save slurry in quart jars, since that's always more than enough for a 10 gallon batch.

I sanitize the jars, and pour the yeast into them, and label with the strain and date.

How do you keep air out of the jars? Do you just fill to the top?

I don't think this is revolutionary, maybe I'm missing something. You're splitting a starter and making new starters from it.

Now, you could make a great thread called "Never wash your yeast again and use 1% as much DME as you do now". In such a thread you would reveal that your 5 gallon beer... is really a 5 gallon starter for your next beer. (Bum bum bummmm!) And as long as you don't overpitch your cake, you are getting a sufficient supply of daughter cells in each subsequent batch to last a dozen or more brews, at which point, if you think your yeast are slacking off, you can use a mere sample of that yeast (perhaps with spare wort from a current brew) to make a starter for your next batch, starting the process over again. There's no reason to wash yeast, it amounts to playing with your food. Slurry is the word.

BreezyBrew said:

How do you keep air out of the jars? Do you just fill to the top?

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The beer that settles to the top is prophylactic enough, if it's going in a fridge.

badbeer said:

...
You herd me!!!
...

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No sir! I will not (herd you); however, my dog will (watch your heels!)

Yooper said:

The first post definitely needs more exclamation points! There aren't enough! They are an underused punctuation symbol!

Anyway, this is what I do now. I don't rinse the yeast cake. I pick up the fermenter once the beer is racked out, and pour the slurry into 3 or 4 mason jars. One pint jar is usually enough for 10 gallons, but I do use mrmalty.com's yeast pitching calculator to make sure.

There isn't any work at all involved, and no trouble at all. I generally get 5 10 gallon batches out of that, if I don't save future yeast cakes the same way. If I save the future cakes as well, I would save much more $$$$ but I only have enough room in my yeast fridge for about 10 jars of saved slurry.

Click to expand...

So trub and all. What if the trubs heavy? Do you still have a little wort at top of the jar?

F_R_O_G said:

you know what's easier, buying yeast at the store since your already there to pick up the grains

Click to expand...

I'm usually not, because I keep my grains in my basement. I don't go to the LHBS once per brew day, I'd go broke! Moreover, why would you buy the same strain over and over for $4-7 when you have an enormous, healthy supply at the bottom of your fermenter? Isn't throw-away culture at odds with the purpose of homebrewing and DIY? (Here's where I go off on a rant).

When I wash yeast I just pour a bit over 2 quarts into my fermenter from a sealed distilled water jug, shake, let settle for 10 minutes then pour the slurry into 2, sanitized jars and seal. Takes all of maybe 2 minutes?

If you are saving half your starter for a future brew then you may not be pitching enough yeast. With a moderate gravity 5-6gallon batch of ale you need to pitch at least a 2L starter, maybe 3L if only using one vial (100 million cells) liquid yeast.

under-pitching (not using enough yeast) is a cause for a lot of beer flavor problems.

While we're on this, has anyone noticed that Mr. Malty's slurry viability calculation drops off a cliff after like a month, and then bottoms out at 10% for all eternity? I have been taking it with a big grain of salt and have not found my beer to be underpitched, but maybe I'm just lucky.

I haver never tried this and want to make sure on one point. After I pour the yeast from the bottom of my fermentor into the sanitized mason jars, do I then store these in the refrigerator. When ready to use, just warm for several hours and pitch?

szap said:

I haver never tried this and want to make sure on one point. After I pour the yeast from the bottom of my fermentor into the sanitized mason jars, do I then store these in the refrigerator. When ready to use, just warm for several hours and pitch?

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That is exactly what I do. Definitely store in refrigerator.

On brew day take it out a few hours early and right before you pitch, sanitize the lids, pop them off and carefully pour off (decant) most of the liquid leaving just 1/2" liquid on top the yeast layer, then swirl it up till nothing is left on the bottom and pitch. No sense pitching all that nasty liquid into your wort.

szap said:

I haver never tried this and want to make sure on one point. After I pour the yeast from the bottom of my fermentor into the sanitized mason jars, do I then store these in the refrigerator. When ready to use, just warm for several hours and pitch?

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There is a million different ways to do it, but yes that is one I have used and it works!

Don't seal up your mason jars when you collect yeast cakes. Even if you store them in the fridge. The yeast will continue offputting CO2 for a period of time and build up pressure. The pressure will end up breaking down the yeast cell's walls and killing your yeast. Place the lid on the jars and screw down the rings leaving enough room for gases to escape (like an airlock).

Yes, that's good advice--pressure should not be the main concern, you will get burst jars before you get any pressure worth mentioning. When you are in your fridge or have to move them around, keep an eye out for bulging lids, just in case.

fearwig said:

While we're on this, has anyone noticed that Mr. Malty's slurry viability calculation drops off a cliff after like a month, and then bottoms out at 10% for all eternity? I have been taking it with a big grain of salt and have not found my beer to be underpitched, but maybe I'm just lucky.

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Well actually after a year it goes to 1% and stays there till eternity.

mbbransc said:

Don't seal up your mason jars when you collect yeast cakes. Even if you store them in the fridge. The yeast will continue offputting CO2 for a period of time and build up pressure. The pressure will end up breaking down the yeast cell's walls and killing your yeast. Place the lid on the jars and screw down the rings leaving enough room for gases to escape (like an airlock).

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I have never had this problem. There is nothin in the jars left to convert.

mbbransc said:

Don't seal up your mason jars when you collect yeast cakes. Even if you store them in the fridge. The yeast will continue offputting CO2 for a period of time and build up pressure. The pressure will end up breaking down the yeast cell's walls and killing your yeast. Place the lid on the jars and screw down the rings leaving enough room for gases to escape (like an airlock).

Click to expand...

If the yeast is done, and no fermentables are added, there isn't any risk of pressure build up any more than a bottled beer would have.

If the lid is loose, and gas can escape, then 02 can get it. For storage, the lid should be on securely.

fearwig said:

Yes, that's good advice--pressure should not be the main concern, you will get burst jars before you get any pressure worth mentioning. When you are in your fridge or have to move them around, keep an eye out for bulging lids, just in case.

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Been collecting straight slurry for a few years now. I screw the lids on tight and store in the fridge. Have never had a problem with a jar bursting. I don't believe enough CO2 is being released at that point to do any damage. At least, I've never noticed any. I currently have about 8 jars in my fridge. No issues. I do also give me beer plenty of time to finish up. I rarely rack/keg/bottle before 3-4 weeks from pitching.

I've heard the warnings about pressure build up, but never experienced it. If anything, the lid is hard to remove because a vacuum forms from contraction during chilling.


Note: I pitch cold

I use these for yeast storage, after washing and sanitizing. They are 1.75 liters. I was surprised by how much one had bulged and how much pressure was released when I loosened the cap. I leave the cap loose now.

You can write on these with a Sharpie.

Yooper said:

If the yeast is done, and no fermentables are added, there isn't any risk of pressure build up any more than a bottled beer would have.

If the lid is loose, and gas can escape, then 02 can get it. For storage, the lid should be on securely.

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As you can tell from my previous post... I 100% agree and have the history to back it up. The jars won't explode.

mbbransc said:

Don't seal up your mason jars when you collect yeast cakes. Even if you store them in the fridge. The yeast will continue offputting CO2 for a period of time and build up pressure. The pressure will end up breaking down the yeast cell's walls and killing your yeast. Place the lid on the jars and screw down the rings leaving enough room for gases to escape (like an airlock).

Click to expand...

Despite what other may say, what mbbransc said above is accurate. There are a couple pages in Yeast that go into specific containers that are considered the best choices for storing yeast slurry. The best container recommended by Chris White is a stainless bucket with lid that fits over the rim of the bucket as it will keep airborne dust/particles out yet allow the venting of co2 which, when allowed to, will continue venting for quite a long time. Both the carbon dioxide AND the pressure inside a sealed container is detrimental to yeast cells. Granted, at the homebrew scale I think a bucket might be a bit overkill ; however, something that can mimic the effects would suffice.

Sealed glass mason jars are not considered an optimal choice by Chris White due to the potential glass explosion factor and because of the screw-on lid. He states:

"If you use any vessel with a screw-on lid, leave the lid loose. Engage
only the first couple threads, which allows any pressure to escape
easily, but is secure enough that the lid will not fall off. In all cases you
can gain some additional protection by covering the top of the container
with a piece of aluminum foil." [White 2010:157-158]

You want to find out how much pressure/co2 is stored inside your tightly sealed jar? Shake it up, give 2 seconds, and try pushing down on the lid .
DON'T ACTUALLY DO THIS UNLESS YOU'RE PROTECTED.

stpug said:

Despite what other may say, what mbbransc said above is accurate. There are a couple pages in Yeast that go into specific containers that are considered the best choices for storing yeast slurry. The best container recommended by Chris White is a stainless bucket with lid that fits over the rim of the bucket as it will keep airborne dust/particles out yet allow the venting of co2 which, when allowed to, will continue venting for quite a long time. Both the carbon dioxide AND the pressure inside a sealed container is detrimental to yeast cells. Granted, at the homebrew scale I think a bucket might be a bit overkill ; however, something that can mimic the effects would suffice.

Sealed glass mason jars are not considered an optimal choice by Chris White due to the potential glass explosion factor and because of the screw-on lid. He states:

"If you use any vessel with a screw-on lid, leave the lid loose. Engage
only the first couple threads, which allows any pressure to escape
easily, but is secure enough that the lid will not fall off. In all cases you
can gain some additional protection by covering the top of the container
with a piece of aluminum foil." [White 2010:157-158]

You want to find out how much pressure/co2 is stored inside your tightly sealed jar? Shake it up, give 2 seconds, and try pushing down on the lid .
DON'T ACTUALLY DO THIS UNLESS YOU'RE PROTECTED.

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There's theory and then there's real life practice. In theory, communism works great! But in real life, not so much. (Just joking around here. No need for a heated political debate.) The point being I understand the reasoning behind this, but I've never noticed an issue in real life practice. I have seen just the opposite. I've notice a lid one or twice having reverse pressure due to the cold and the lid actually pulling in a bit. Again, nowhere near enough to cause any issues.

dobe12 said:

There's theory and then there's real life practice. In theory, communism works great! But in real life, not so much. (Just joking around here. No need for a heated political debate.) The point being I understand the reasoning behind this, but I've never noticed an issue in real life practice. I have seen just the opposite. I've notice a lid one or twice having reverse pressure due to the cold and the lid actually pulling in a bit. Again, nowhere near enough to cause any issues.

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I understand that seeing is believing.... maybe that's why I'm agnostic

If you're experiencing exploding mason jars, there's a reason for it. Your beer was not done fermenting when you bottled up your yeast.

Personally I've never seen or heard of one exploding and I'm not convinced that it's possible. The lid is designed to relieve pressure after a certain point.