BIAB- RE USING YEAST

[JCRochabrew]

Hi All

I started recently doing BIAB- making my 2nd recipe now.
my vessel does not have a false bottom or a tap.
I use a grain bag, but do not use a hop bag; I put the hop pellets directly

My question- can I reuse the yeast? Do I have to wash it with boiling water?

 

[Abhishek Dewan]

You can absolutely reuse yeast. But boiling will kill it. Put in jar, cold crash it for few hours and after it settles, throw away liquid, gently. Top it up with clean water and repeat. This is a simple process.

 

[Mer-man]

Try adjusting your transfer to fermenter such that you leave the hot and cold break in the kettle. Then you will only have yeast (and a little cold break) in your fermenter.

 

[JCRochabrew]

Thanks for the replies.

So, there is no worries about the hop pellets leftovers that stay in the bottom of the fermenter bucket?

And how many times can I reuse the yeast? I saw in the internet that 2 times maximum? Can we resuse more?

 

[Oginme]

Thanks for the replies.

So, there is no worries about the hop pellets leftovers that stay in the bottom of the fermenter bucket?

And how many times can I reuse the yeast? I saw in the internet that 2 times maximum? Can we resuse more?

My method is to can water using a pressure cooker and 1 quart canning jars. I can put up 7 jars at a go with my pressure canner and it ensures that the water, can, and lids are sterilized (proper pressure brings temp up to sanitization range). I add a jar of the now chilled water into the carboy after siphoning out the contents and leaving about a 1/2" of beer behind. I then swirl the contents to bring up all the trub and yeast into suspension and allow it to stand for a half hour to an hour. I then pour off the remaining liquid into the canning jar and loosely screw on the lid. Label it and place it in the refrigerator until I need it.

When I go to pitch it into the next batch, I pour off most of the clear watery beer on top first and then swirl up the yeast/trub combination. There is usually not much hop matter and depending upon the strain of the yeast, not much trub either. Around the third or fourth repitch I do a cell count usually looking more for oddly shaped cells, non-yeast contaminants, etc. but also checking the health of the cells (thickness of cell wall, signs of budding, etc.). If the pitch needs propping up, I will make a starter with plenty of yeast nutrient. If I see a number of contaminating cells, it goes in the trash and I start over. I've only needed to do this twice in five years.

I have gone as many as 8 repitches (original packet + 8 pitches = nine brews) with a yeast slurry before retiring it to the goats. Most go about 3 to 4 repitches.

 

[brew703]

Are you reusing dry or liquid yeast? If liquid why not just harvest from your starter?

 

[JCRochabrew]

Hi again.

The beer frozen by mistake in the fermenter, while doing a cold crash.
when unfrozen, can I re use that yeast or it will be killed?

 

[Abhishek Dewan]

If it was few days, they will be ok. After few weeks, their cell rupture meaning you have to repitch.

 

[JCRochabrew]

Hi All.
This is the harvested yeast - US 05, from a 22 litre fermenter bucket.
The beer froze and unfroze and I let it at 5 C for 3 weeks.
How can I know if the yeast can by resused? and what quantity?

 

[Oginme]

Best way to check if the yeast is still viable is to make a small starter with a portion of the slurry. I would start with a 1 liter starter wort and add about a teaspoon of the slurry to check activity. In this case because I am looking for signs of activity more than cell growth, I would keep it someplace I can see it frequently and shake it every time I passed it to see if there is a build/release up of CO2 which would indicate cellular activity.

 

[dwhite60]

All I do is use a sterile jar, lid, and sanitized spoon. I dig about a cup of slurry out of the bottom of the fermenter and put it in the jar, put the lid on, and put it in the fridge. You might want to just loosen the lid and vent it periodically as some pressure does build in the jar.

I use it within six to eight weeks.

To use, I take the jar out of the fridge an hour before pitching to let it warm up. I use a sanitized spoon and put about half to two thirds of the saved slurry in my new batch. What's left gets tossed and the jar re-heat sterilized for next use.

All the Best,
D. White

 

[z-bob]

Hi All

I started recently doing BIAB- making my 2nd recipe now.
my vessel does not have a false bottom or a tap.
I use a grain bag, but do not use a hop bag; I put the hop pellets directly

My question- can I reuse the yeast? Do I have to wash it with boiling water?

I have starting filtering my wort thru a sanitized paint strainer bag when I transfer it from the kettle to the fermenter. That removes almost all of the hops and a lot of the hot break protein. It makes harvesting moderately-clean yeast easier. Then i don't wash it, I just pour it into a clean sanitized mason jar with a lid, label it (strain and date), and put it in the fridge.

If you're going to wash it don't use boiling water, but maybe use boiled (and cooled) water.

 

[enkamania]

I brew hoppy beers and re-use the yeast all the time. I use a pickle pipe lid for the mason jar.

 

[Kaz]

In a pinch, rack a new wort right on to the yeast cake in your fermenter. I just finished fermenting a English Brown Ale on WLP 013, it was a 1.054 plain jane brown ale, I kegged it, and brewed a Black IPA, 1.068 gravity. Transferred right into the fermenter, had fermentation in about 2 hours and the IPA was done in about 36 hours.