Saving Yeast Starters

I’ve brewed 3 kits so far, all fermented with dry yeast. I’m about to brew my first kit that uses liquid yeast, so I spent a little time over the weekend reading and watching YouTube vids on making Yeast Starters. That eventually led to watching vids on harvesting & washing yeast. I’m intrigued by the idea of maintaining a healthy culture of a favorite yeast in the fridge to be used for multiple brew sessions.

It appears to me that while harvesting / washing yeast from a fermenter after brewing produces a higher quantity, harvesting before brewing would do more to maintain the original yeast strain without the minor risks of introducing off-flavors, colors, or other characteristics of the original brew to a new one. I’ve read for instance that if you harvest from a dark heavy beer, it’s better to use that yeast on another similar beer, and not for a lighter beer.

If you aren’t concerned with settng aside large quantities of yeast, but want to use a strain of yeast for multiple brew sessions, wouldn’t making a larger starter with light DME, splittling that and setting aside 1/2 for the next batch allow you to maintain the original untainted strain of yeast? Couldn’t you even wash that yeast if the time between sessions is to be extended?

How long will a starter last in the fridge? How long will washed yeast samples stay viable?

Thanks in advance.

From my limited experience now, washing yeast is terribly easy, and if you follow the steps in the yeast washing tutorial (pictorial) here at HBT, it's a breeze. That helps you separate some of the trub from the yeast by letting it settle a couple times and decanting.

Once you are in this position you essentially have just saved the strain of yeast, and not in huge excessive amounts in little pint or half pint jars. Then you just culture a starter with them, label the type of yeast and AA, RA, and you can use it with any brew after that.

From my limited experience and from what I know, if your washing it doesn't really matter about what you use the yeast for the next batch for. Just harvest out of the primary (if washing), and you have that strain, just as if you were going to go pick it up from your LHBS. When you do want to pay attention to what kind of beer you are using your yeast for is when you pitch onto a secondary yeast cake. The main reason I am aware of then is, you are getting more trub and possible flavors from your previous beer (you have the entire yeast cake), but mainly the cell count of the yeast in those cakes is so high, you don't want to throw a lower gravity brew on top, as it would be overpitching by a long shot. Then you want to make sure you do similar style, higher gravity, when pitching onto cakes. It has worked well for me a few times with great results.

Every time I have used washed yeast, it hasn't produced any noticeable off flavors to me, tastes just as great as if I had just bought the liquid cultures.

If you do a good job of washing color won't be an issue. I've never washed out of anything heavily spiced or with any secondary additions in the beer.

Some people split the original starter. It is a good way to keep a cleaner source to go back to. It's just a question of how often you will brew with that culture. Most people say a washed yeast culture will keep for a couple months. I've used yeast out of my fridge that's a little over six months old and still had viability. If you're going to keep part of the original yeast you can get more value out of it by following the freezing process explained somewhere on this forum and get more out of each generation.

I tried washing yeast and, while it was successful (in fact, I'm making a starter now from one of my original washed yeast harvests), I found that splitting the starter and saving some for later to be much easier. Splitting a starter takes one step, whereas washing yeast requires several, and the result is cleaner yeast. As far as shelf life goes, I don't believe there is any difference. Viability of six months to a year following either process seems to be common. If you need a longer shelf life than that, then freezing and slanting would be the way to go.

Another option (if you are making the same beer)is to brew another batch and put it right onto the yeast cake that is allready in your fermenter?my brew bud has had good fast ferments with this method.

I split starters for exactly the reason described. I do a 2 stage starter. Just need to begin early enough ( tuesday before for a weekend brew day) Starter, stir plate till floculates naturally, cold crash, decant, harvest slurry into 3 preforms, then step the starter and pitch. Lately I have added the step of decanting my harvested yeast containers and topping off with the pitching slurry prior to pitching. IMHO, this works best if you do starters. That way, if a starter fails to ferment you have time to run out to the LHBW and obtain a fresh specimen. (although That hasn't happened yet)

BrewBeer74 said:

Another option (if you are making the same beer)is to brew another batch and put it right onto the yeast cake that is allready in your fermenter?my brew bud has had good fast ferments with this method.

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This method does work well and I have used it on occasion, but I personally only use this method if I am brewing the same beer or a very similar beer. I do not want the flavors from an IPA, for example, to influence say a sweet porter.

GrandpasFridge said:

wouldn’t making a larger starter with light DME, splittling that and setting aside 1/2 for the next batch allow you to maintain the original untainted strain of yeast? Couldn’t you even wash that yeast if the time between sessions is to be extended?

How long will a starter last in the fridge? How long will washed yeast samples stay viable?
.

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I do this everytime I buy a new liquid yeast strain. I'll actually do it 2 or 3 times during the coarse of a week, so I end up with a few extra jars. I've used 6 month old yeast to make starters, and they worked just fine...

Thanks everbody for the great info. This has been a really educational read.

I'm going to wait a while on harvesting and washing, but will definitely do a larger batch of starter on this next beer, split it and use on another soon.