Yeast Washing Illustrated

Do you need to wash yeast if you make a starter with origional vial of yeast to put in different jars for future batches.? I do 2.5 gallon batches,so how many jars can you get out of 1 vial/starter? And how big of a starter should I use?

 

Sorry in advance if this has already been brought up!

For those of you who harvest from 5 gallon batches, use jars with marked measurements and follow this method exactly, filling 4 jars with slurry....

How many ml thick would you say your cake is after a few days in the fridge?

Just wanna make sure I'm on par here.
I seem to get around 50ml maybe a bit less. Hard to say cuz the lowest marking on my jar is 100ml

 

I did this recently and my best estimate is that I only had about 10 mL in each pint jar. On the plus side, there was essentially no visible trub. This seems to be a bit less than most people get, which may be because I pulled a big part of the cake to immediately repitch, and I probably took the best part of the rinsed slurry for that.

The cell counts were good enough to launch a starter right away, even after about 6 weeks, but I made an effort to be conservative by adding a first stage with about half a liter of low gravity wort.

 

What's the longest anyone here has stored washed yeast and effectively used it. And of course with a starter.

 

11 months for me

 

After a couple of days in my secondary, I notice what looks like yeast on the bottom. Is that indeed yeast or something else. Also, I thought that once the yeast cells ate the sugars, they were no any good. Is the yeast at the end of fermentation the extra cells that were not needed? Yeast washing looks interesting and I may try it in the near future so I'm trying to understand it better.

 

Yeast are living organisms just like yourself, are you not any good after you eat?

What kills yeast is high alcohol levels, heat, and a few other unlivable conditions that your beer should not present to the organisms. After they eat the sugar, they go to sleep and remain in a stasis until they see prime living/feeding/multiplying conditions again.

Think of them like sea monkeys, they are kind of hard to kill.

 

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I have been washing and reusing my yeas for a couple of years now with this same technique with good success. However, I have just for the most part, been using .25gal starter wort to 1 pint jar of yeast wash per 6 gal regardless of the OG. My question is, (and I apologize if it was previously covered but I did try searching without finding any results to my liking), but lets say I just brewed a 6 gallon batch @ OG 1.057. How many of the pint jars of the washed yeast do you suggest and at what volume of starter wort do you suggest?

I have tried using Mr. Malty but I am not certain what the results mean due to the fact I am unsure how to enter the data correctly. I know, call me stupid...sometimes I just need it spelled out for me.

Thanks, any help would be greatly appreciated,
Jason

 

Yes, in the bottom of your secondary that is yeast. You DO NOT want to use that yeast. That is yeast that does not flocculate well. If you were to use that yeast you will end up having a hard time clearing your beers. You want to use the yeast from your primary. Minus the rinsing of the trub, hot and cold break, hop bits and dead yeast.

 

I am curious on this too. It looks like smack packs are 4.25 oz, so just over 1/2 cup, or 1/4 pint. So I'm not sure how a pint of washed yeast compares to 1/4 pint of yeast in a smack pack.

 

In order to use Mr Malty or YeastCalc, you need to start by figuring out how many viable cells you have. Ideally, you'd count them directly... but few of us have the capacity to do this.

What I do is to start by figuring out how many mL of condensed slurry I have in the bottom of my pint jar. The easiest way to do this if it's a small amount is to set an identical jar next to it and add water until it's to the same level as the slurry, then pour out and weigh that water in grams---that's how many mL of slurry you've got.

The next question is how many cells were in there. To do this, you've got to figure out the density in cells/mL. Basing this on the book "Yeast" and the MrMalty documentation, if you have solid yeast, it's about 4.5 billion/mL, and about 1 billion/mL if it's a thin slurry. Mine are usually pretty solid, so I usually use something like 3 billion/mL as a guess. You've probably got 10-25% non-yeast mixed in also, so you ought to scale to account for that, but it's not really necessary given the other uncertainties in this process.

Ok, so you have X mL of slurry at Y billion cells/mL, so multiply the two numbers to get your cell estimate. Now you have to figure out the viability. You can get some idea by playing with the dates on the MrMalty calculator and watcing how its viability goes, but many people challenge the general validity of its model. I usually just assume it's between 50 and 100% and plan my starter steps so that I'll have an acceptable pitch rate at either extreme.

So, for example, on my recent rinsing, I had about 10 mL of compacted slurry, which is roughly 10 * 3 = 30 billion cells. I played around with yeast calc and came up with a 3 step starter that was right at the desired pitch rate for 15 billion cells (50% viability) and was about 15% high for 30 billion cells (100% viability). Using two or three steps will reduce your sensitivity to starting count somewhat. I think I used a 500 mL first step.

Hope that helps. It's not very precise, but I think it's about the best you can do short of counting cells.

 

2 months over a year. Or 14 months.

As has been said before if you wash the yeast well and have everything that comes into contact with it sanitized those little guys will last a long time. Yeast are much more hardy than you might think.

When I pull one of my baby-food-jar yeasts out (usually about 3/4 full of yeast slurry), I note the color and the scent of it before using a starter. Then it's into the starter and off we go.

Also +1 on having a dry yeast backup on hand. It never hurts and sometimes it will help.

 

This is exactly what I do too. Is it perfectly accurate? Probably not. But it works.

 

This may have confused me more

So if I have a pint jar, and it's 1/4 full of thick yeast. That would be 118 ml. So that would be roughly 354 billion cells. So I would have to do a starter to triple this then it sounds like for a standar 5g batch?

 

Only if your viability was 100%.

 

So I wonder if throwing the whole pint(thick and thin), into a 2L starter would suffice for a 5g batch.

My recipe is calling for only 2.367 tbsp(35 ml)

 

Again. Depends on your viability. If you had 100% viability you wouldn't even need a starter. If you have 1% viability you'd needs a multi-step starter. It all depends on the age/viability of the yeast and how much other crap is in there.

 

Well since my recipe is calling for only 35ml, even if I have 50% viablity, it still sounds like a pint, even it only a 1/5 - 1/4 that was thick yeast, would still be more than enough and a starter wouldn't be needed. I may still try a 1L starter just for kicks, since I've never done a starter before.

 

That is a whole lot of yeast. Are you certain it's all yeast? Often you can see layers with slightly different colors, where one layer is yeast and the other trub.

But yes, if you have 118 mL of pure yeast gunk (stuff so thick you can't pour), that's 350-450 billion cells. If it's all viable, then that would be enough for most beers without increasing the counts at all.

 

If it's very low viability, there's also the issue that you probably won't get the results you expect from the strain. By the time a significant fraction of the yeast have died, the characteristics of the survivors will be selected for "can survive a long time in a pint jar in the fridge," not, "makes good beer."

Also, you'd probably want to do a starter and decant just to separate the live yeast from the dead so that you don't pitch a ton of dead yeast into your beer.

 

I'm not sure about either of those things. Especially the second, though. Dead yeast just serve as nutrients during the lag phase. In fact, a lot of people throw yeast in during the boil of high gravity brews to give yeast an extra boost.

 

Ok. So I just had a question. I use a blowoff and a lot of the time I will end up with a layer of what looks like yeast that settles out in my bottle of blowoff starsan. Would this theoretically be usable? Or would you all suggest against it? Here is a picture for your viewing pleasure.

 

I don't think it's typically suggested you use that yeast, from what I've read anyway...but it certainly does seem like it could be good. I always ponder the same thing in my blowoff container.

I mean if you could keep the blowoff sanitary I don't see why not.
...but I don't know how well yeast will rest dormant in starsan or any other sanitizer.

I bet that would be primo yeast if you could harvest it!

 

Thanks to this thread, I can't imagine not washing my yeast after each batch. We spend a lot of money on highly specialized yeast strains, why would you want to throw them away? Especially when it is so easy to do.

Great thread!

 

Think about this, if yeast can live in the sanitizer is it really killing off anything else like bacteria or wild yeast?

 

Now Im thinking I should let it come to room temperature, pour off the tiny bit at the top, put this in 3 16oz jars, top off with distilled water, mix, and store in the fridge? Does that sound like a good plan.

 

Sure, but you want it to be in a closed container and into water instead of sanitizer. Check the link in my sig for yeast harvesting from the blowoff.

 

It's widely recommended that you (e.g., the book "Yeast") not pitch yeast with < 90% viability. Selective pressure and general yeast health are among the reasons for this.

As for the latter, I realized last night that just decanting won't get rid of dead yeast, you'd need to do something else to manage that. As to whether it's a good idea, I don't think *pitching* intact, dead yeast is a good idea. Boiling it is different---that will denature proteins, etc, so it's more like adding nutrients. I don't know for certain that pitching dead yeast will cause problems, but I feel pretty confident saying it's not going to help you.

 

Speaking of the book "Yeast," I really need to move it out of my Amazon wish list and into my cart. Does it recommend a rinsing approach similar to the one in this thread?

I'd also like to better understand what Jamil means by "slurry" on the 'Repitching from Slurry' tab on mrmalty.com. Anyone know if this is covered in the book? Based on his comments on Brew Strong, it seems like he does a less involved version of this thread's approach (i.e., a single rinse with less water), but I don't know if he considers that a "slurry" or something else.

 

Slurry, from my understanding, is the thick and thin yeast mix areas. So you see how mrmalty has a slider 0 - 25%. So if it seems like a really clean slurry of yeast, you could put that towards 0. The yeast I have is a little mixed, so I put the slider towards 25%.

 

I would never do that either, but you can certainly step it up in a starter.

 

Thanks for the breakdown Zeg! That actually makes a lot of sense and answers a lot of questions for me.

Jason

 

I don't own the book, but I've checked it out from the library a couple times. It discusses rinsing yeast, but doesn't go into much detail about the procedure. There's more detailed information in this thread. The biggest sections in that book cover yeast culturing and lab techniques, which are interesting, but not essential if you don't plan to start slanting or plating.

He does have a page or so about estimating the slurry density. Basically, a slurry is a suspension of the yeast solids in water (or wort or beer or whatever). His advice is to buy a White Labs yeast vial. The yeast in the bottom of that (assuming it is not shaken up yet) is around the 4.5 billion/mL density. Shake it up, and you now have that distributed in 40 mL (or so, I don't recall the exact number), so you know what a slurry of that dilution looks like. Dilute by a factor of two again, and now you know half that, etc.

The 0-25% is for an impure slurry---the White Labs is close to 0%, but he states that home-rinsed yeast will probably never have less than 10% non-yeast. If you can see any non-yeast, it's closer to 25%. (At least, I think that's how he puts it. This may also be in the MrMalty documentation.)

 

Practiced rinsing some Notty from the Secondary of a Graf tonight it went smoothly thanks to this thread!
I'm planning on rinsing some 1056 (currently in primary) for a nice stout or something heavy. Got a pyrex 2L erlenmeyer that helps a lot. would have been wasting money on yeast I already had so thanks to HBT once again.

 

Do you actually even have to wash it I just pour the top layer off into a mason jar and sealed it in my fridge and it looks like your picture on the left now in my fridge can I repitch this?

 

You don't have to do it, but rinsing will reduce the amount of trub. If you're brewing a similar or very strongly flavored beer, that may not be a problem. If you're brewing something different and lightly flavored, you may get some of the current beer transfered over.

 

I have to say thanks to this thread for introducing me to yeast washing! I've been washing the yeast from my last several batches and have been having success so far.

I've been enjoying a clone of Great Lakes Christmas Ale where I used Wyeast 1028 that I had washed from a batch of a Winter Red Ale and it could be the best beer I've made to date!

I also washed some Wyeast 1272 from a Black IPA I brewed and recently used it for clones of Ranger and Fat Tire (they're both still in primary so I've got a ways to go to see how they turn out). But they have both been fermenting away so far!

Next will be some Bells yeast that I harvested from some Bells Amber Ale. I used the harvested yeast for an Oberon clone and washed the yeast from that brew and I'm planning on using the washed yeast for a Bells Two Hearted clone and a Bells Best Brown clone.

 

You are using 1 of the small mason jars for the starter, correct? Just confused about the give the rest a good shake, and pitch.

Excellent write up and thank you. :rockin:

 

I'm not Bernie Brewer, but to answer your question, I use one mason jar per starter and have had no problems. I think what he means in, 'give the rest a good shake' is that you shake the remaining liquid in your jar after you decant it. Personally, I just shake the whole jar and dump it all into my starter without decanting...