Banking yeast from starter?

[ucheckit]

I am looking to make a 4L starter of London ale III to fill 4 quart mason jars to use at a later time. Each jar should contain about 175 billion cells by my calculations. My question is what is the best way to do this? I have heard that storing in distilled water is effective for long term storage but wanted to see if there were some other tricks of the trade out there! Thanks!

 

[kh54s10]

I make a starter for a beer that I am going to brew. I make it a little bigger than needed. I then use 5ml yeast slurry, 5ml glycerin and 10ml water in 20ml vials. I chill then in the refrigerator. When fully chilled I shake them up and put them in the freezer. I make 4 vials. I have them in an foam cooler box surrounded by ice packs to counter the defrost cycle of the freezer. I have made starters from samples over 2 years old with success.

I have heard of people saving in jars and using after long storage, but I have also heard the suggestion of not storing that way for more than a couple of months??

When I store yeast in jars it has been from the slurry after the fermentation of a beer, I then just fill the jar with the slurry.

Best medium for yeast from a starter, I don't know.

 

[pshankstar]

I overbuild my starters to harvest the yeast and use later. I'll split the batch like you have stated and leave it in the fridge as is. If there is a lot of head space, then I will chill it for a couple of days, decant some of the starter wort and then shake it up. Then pour it into s smaller sanitized jar with less head space. When I am ready to use it, I just decant it, warm it up and make a new starter. So far I haven't had any issues with this method for the last year since I have started overbuilding my starters. Good luck!

 

[ucheckit]

Thanks guys l! Makes sense both methods. What temp is ideal for storage?

 

[LLBeanJ]

Long term storage is best under the starter beer used to propagate it, so no need to decant and replace with distilled.

Using quart jars seems to me to be like it would take up quite a bit of space. Why not just make a 1L starter and divide into 8 oz jars? There's really no advantage to storing more than 50M cells/jar for long-term storage due to loss of viability over time, meaning you'll have to likely make a starter when you finally get around to using it anyway, so all you need is a small amount to start the process. Also, I've found that unless you use the same yeast for all your brews, saving just one jar for a future starter is really all you need, since you can save more when you make the next starter. Also, you can direct-pitch slurry from one batch into another, precluding the need to even make another starter, so with efficient yeast management and scheduling, you can likely get away with only having to make a starter maybe half the time, or less.

My usual process when I buy a new strain is to make a starter big enough to brew the batch I plan to brew with it + 25-50M cells to save off for later in a single jar. Some of my older strains are still going from yeast I bought over 2 years ago.

 

[ucheckit]

Long term storage is best under the starter beer used to propagate it, so no need to decant and replace with distilled.



Using quart jars seems to me to be like it would take up quite a bit of space. Why not just make a 1L starter and divide into 8 oz jars? There's really no advantage to storing more than 50M cells/jar for long-term storage due to loss of viability over time, meaning you'll have to likely make a starter when you finally get around to using it anyway, so all you need is a small amount to start the process. Also, I've found that unless you use the same yeast for all your brews, saving just one jar for a future starter is really all you need, since you can save more when you make the next starter. Also, you can direct-pitch slurry from one batch into another, precluding the need to even make another starter, so with efficient yeast management and scheduling, you can likely get away with only having to make a starter maybe half the time, or less.



My usual process when I buy a new strain is to make a starter big enough to brew the batch I plan to brew with it + 25-50M cells to save off for later in a single jar. Some of my older strains are still going from yeast I bought over 2 years ago.

I was storing the yeast in 1 quart jars because that roughly equaled 1 liter and removed the head space. I plan on brewing quite a bit in the upcoming weeks months and some will be low gravity and this size would not require a starter. Do you recommend decanting the quart size starter into a smaller jar? Also why would anything over 50m not have an advantage? Thanks!

 

[LLBeanJ]

I was storing the yeast in 1 quart jars because that roughly equaled 1 liter and removed the head space. I plan on brewing quite a bit in the upcoming weeks months and some will be low gravity and this size would not require a starter. Do you recommend decanting the quart size starter into a smaller jar? Also why would anything over 50m not have an advantage? Thanks!

If you're brewing smaller batch sizes or lower gravity brews and planning on doing them all within a few months of saving the yeast so that no starter is needed, then that sounds like a sound plan. Use the quart jars and don't decant until ready to use.

I brew 6 gal batches which typically require 200+B cells plus an additional amount to save off for later. I also have about 5 strains that I use fairly regularly, as well as another 4-5 strains I use less often. As a result, some of the starters I make are from yeast that was saved 6-12 months previously. After that much time, viability is often (according to the calculators, at least) around 10-20%. Assuming 20%, that means if I were to save off 100B cells, I'd only have 20B viable, whereas if I saved of 50B, I'd have 10B viable. Not much difference there, really. Either way, I still have to make a starter to get my pitch qty, so why save off a large qty of yeast if ~80% or more are going to die off before I will use again? 30B ± ~5B is usually what I end up saving off for later.

 

[ucheckit]

If you're brewing smaller batch sizes or lower gravity brews and planning on doing them all within a few months of saving the yeast so that no starter is needed, then that sounds like a sound plan. Use the quart jars and don't decant until ready to use.



I brew 6 gal batches which typically require 200+B cells plus an additional amount to save off for later. I also have about 5 strains that I use fairly regularly, as well as another 4-5 strains I use less often. As a result, some of the starters I make are from yeast that was saved 6-12 months previously. After that much time, viability is often (according to the calculators, at least) around 10-20%. Assuming 20%, that means if I were to save off 100B cells, I'd only have 20B viable, whereas if I saved of 50B, I'd have 10B viable. Not much difference there, really. Either way, I still have to make a starter to get my pitch qty, so why save off a large qty of yeast if ~80% or more are going to die off before I will use again? 30B ± ~5B is usually what I end up saving off for later.

Totally get it!! Do you guys use a microscope to get cell count? Or rely on the calculations??

 

[pshankstar]

Calculations for me. I use the following calculator and keep good notes.

http://www.brewunited.com/yeast_calculator.php

So far it's worked for me.

 

[LLBeanJ]

Calculations for me. I use the following calculator and keep good notes.

http://www.brewunited.com/yeast_calculator.php

So far it's worked for me.

Calculations only for me as well (I use YeastCalc), so I have no idea how close my actual cell counts are to the calculated amounts, but I have a consistent process to ensure I am doing it the same way every time, so I'm good with that. And my brews come out as I expect them to with no off-flavors and I never have issues with fermentations that are slow to start of stall short of FG, so I feel that my methods are sound.

 

[ucheckit]

I do the same and have the same results but always used a fresh dosage from white labs or wyeast but now that I would like to start storing the yeast, I'm was sure if the math would get "fuzzy". Thanks for the help.

 

[jpakstis]

I overbuild my starters to harvest the yeast and use later. I'll split the batch like you have stated and leave it in the fridge as is. If there is a lot of head space, then I will chill it for a couple of days, decant some of the starter wort and then shake it up. Then pour it into s smaller sanitized jar with less head space. When I am ready to use it, I just decant it, warm it up and make a new starter. So far I haven't had any issues with this method for the last year since I have started overbuilding my starters. Good luck!

This is what I do. Most of my beers are run-of-the-mill IPAs or summer wheat beers, kolsches, etc. I make a 1.5L starter on a stir plate. I decant about 8 ounces of it when its fully built up into a mason jar and leave that in the fridge with the starter wort. I've been able to keep an original packet of US05 re-propagated for over a year and have used that "line" on 7 batches now and it works every time. I also have some US04, Saflager 34/70, and BRY97 kept in the fridge. I took out the US04 once and it worked great too.

 

[day_trippr]

I've been keeping eight strains going by over-building, it helps keep the cost down in the age of strains running around $12 per dose.

Tonite I split ~200 ml of thick Conan between these two e-flasks, I'll crash 'em tomorrow, pour one of them back into storage and split the other for another growth cycle on Saturday.
Then I'll crash those two Sunday and finally use them Monday on a 10 gallon batch of some random NE dipa, probably one of the Julius clones...



Cheers!

 

[ucheckit]

Day trippr that is a sweet setup! Question: adding yeast to mason jars from flask....do you put on the lid or just put in foil for potential CO2 buildup?

 

[IslandLizard]

I overbuild starters, cold crash them until clear, decant leaving just enough beer behind to make it pourable, and pour the thick slurry into 4 oz mason jars (sometimes 8 oz ones).

They get stored in a small box (3x4x2 jars) in the fridge. Usually they'll contain 3/4" to an inch of yeast with 1/2" of starter beer on top. I write the guestimate cell count on the label as well as the date of the starter.

I really should start freezing some, a la @kh54s10, less yeast maintenance.

 

[day_trippr]

Day trippr that is a sweet setup! Question: adding yeast to mason jars from flask....do you put on the lid or just put in foil for potential CO2 buildup?

After crashing overnight I decant all but about 350-400 ml total volume, swirl the heck out of what's left to get the stickies off the bottom, pour it all into a sanitized mason jar, then seal it up tight.

I check the FGs of my starters just on GPs and this one finished at 1.006.
I've never had a jar blow up on me, but I did forget to tighten up a jar of 3787 and the starter beer in that jar went porter-dark before I noticed it...

Cheers!