Bottle Harvesting Yeast

[jchadscud]

I followed the general instructions (John Palmer's) for bottle harvesting yeast. Rather than using the typical 3oz of DME, I cut that in half to 1.5oz in 500mL. After 1 day, I can visibly see yeast in the bottom of my flask. I plan on stepping up the wort mix, but can I decant the liquid already in the beaker?

My concern is losing healthy yeast in suspension. Any ideas?

 

[Hodor_Baggins]

If you stick your flask in the fridge overnight most of the yeast will settle to the bottom and you can then just decant the "beer" off of that.

 

[rsmith179]

I would recommend that you just use that wort in there to stir up the yeast at the bottom and then just dump that whole mixuture in your step up. There's really no need to decant if you're going to be stepping it up. You can always decant right before pitching into the primary.

 

[jchadscud]

Thanks fellas. I thought about both of those options.

Chill in fridge - Was being lazy and didn't want to have to wait for the yeast to get back to room temp after decanting!

Add to current amount - I'm limited by the 1000mL flask and since I'm already at half capacity, I figured it might be good to decant the beer and start over.

I think I'll let it sit for another day and see how much yeast has accumulated. If I have enough, I might go the chill in fridge route. If there isn't that much, I may just put another 1.5oz of DME in a cup of water, boil, chill and add to the existing mixture.

 

[RayInUT]

I use a half gallon sauerkraut jar for my culturing but the 1st step or two up I use a quart mason jar and then dump it into the half gallon jar once I have a good culture started. You can pitch from the 1/2 gallon jar or pour it into a one gallon jug and keep going. My last batch I pitched a 1/2 gallon starter and went from 1.073 to 1.008 in four days. I have now become a fan of BIG starters!