can i harvest yeast from a ferment and serve?

[fluketamer]

i am currently serving /drinking a 2565 kolsch out of an oxebar keg that i fermented in with a floating diptube.

i usually harvest my yeasts for a repitch .

i had planned on harvesting this yeast. can i still harvest after drinking all the beer off the cake at the bottom of the keg? it will prolly take me at least 4 weeks to get there.

thanks

 

[lumpher]

There will still be some live yeast, but most of it will be old and damaged. It will still ferment, but may get off-flavors. My advice is harvest before, not after. If you do harvest after, rinse the yeast. That should really help.

 

[corncob]

I have done this a few times, but had a bad experience once that put me off of the practice. I had a batch of beer go bad halfway through drinking in a way I have never experienced before or since. Rightly or wrongly I attributed it to autolysis. I was serving from the fermenter, on top of all the yeast, and that yeast had been used the same way one or twice before. I assume it was cumulative time at pressure that did it, because I have never had any trouble saving and repitching otherwise. Who knows though?

Now if I serve on the yeast, that whole cake gets dumped. all that said, I bet you will be fine doing it once.

 

[fluketamer]

yeah , what i think i might do is harvest it and then repitch in a very small vol of DME wort say 1 gallon as a "starter"

then just repitch that cake. i figure if the gallon of beer works then it should be fine to repitch the 1 gallon cake in a fullsize batch. as 3rd generation.

rather than risk it in a full batch

btw this is in those 20 l oxebars. i have found they work great as ferment and serve unitank, i bought two and ihave one in a kegerator and the other in a midea 4 cu ft fridge with inkbird. i ferment in one while i serve in the other then switch every 4 to 5 weeks.

by doing this i have shelved all of my kegs, minikegs, pressure growlers, PET kegs/growlers, and even my FV's (fermzilla, ale pales, Mr beer lbk's .

3 to 4 hours of oxyclean soaks gets rid of all the gunk/ kreusen/ hop matter effortlessly.

better than warm pbw blasting,

thanks for the replies

 

[corncob]

I was on that thread about the oxbar kegs before. I have been steady using the 2 I got, but only to serve. Would you mind elaborating on how you ferment in them? What's your wort volume? How do you deal with krausen? Finings? Etc.

I don't do anything like this now, but I could imagine setting up a system involving a stable recipe, 3 or 4 of those kegs, one dorm fridge, and a brick of dry yeast....

Basically divide my brewing into production and R&D

 

[corncob]

Maybe even make it seasonal. Start up a cream ale reactor in April and switch back to endless permutations of bitter and mild in September.

 

[fluketamer]

so my first few batches were 17.5 liters. because i was terrified of clogging everything up with kreusen and had visions of exploding fermenting chambers.
i asssumed the narrow diameter would mean a very high kreusen but to my surprise they still only have about an inch and half of kreusen at the most.

that was a little bit of a pain cause i had a few liters left over in the kettle. it turned out to be okay tho since i just threw the extra wort in another smaller FV with some other yeast and was able to run a few experiments that way.

then i tried brewing 4.5 gallon batches so as not to have extra wort. but that was wierd with recipe adjustments.

so then i tried 18.5 and still didint have a problem.

then i tried 19 liters and got my first blow off. (now i am thinking of a yeast collection blow off since it looked so healthy)

so i would say 19 is about the most. (without fermcap or something)

it is what it is. i am very happy to sacrifice the 1 or 2 liters of beer for ease in cleaning and sanitizing the one vessel. i usually just toss it with the trub or keep it for a starter or throw it in a growler with some extra yeast for giggles.

i havent been finning since i started doing this and it definately adds almost 2 full weeks for it to clear. i use to just add gelatin to my purged kegs then rack on top of the gelatin to mix it but this obviously wouldnt work with a unitank.

i was thinking of doing a gelatin syringe with ball lock like i have seen on other posts. i wonder if i attach one during cold crash if it would suck the gelatin into the oxebars. i havent yet cause i am not sure how well the gellatin would mix and not just sink to t the bottom.

i do the seasonal thing already. lager and kolsch in the spring and summer stout in the fall and winter.

 

[corncob]

How did you rig the blowoff? Did you have the carb cap fittings in place during fermentation? Did they not clog?

 

[fluketamer]

i just used the gas in post as the blowoff. i threw a ball lock on there and clamped on a long piece of tubing into a bottle of water. i was worried it would clog but just liquid yeast came out of the tube. they dont clog. it worked very well. the nice thing about this is the ball locks mean the beer never touches oxygen once i close the lid.

maybe a beer with more hop matter could be an issue. but i didnt get anything other than yeast in the blowoff.

 

[Broken Crow]

i didnt get anything other than yeast in the blowoff.

hmmm... given your preferred practice, maybe look into top-cropping and propogating from that and give a pass on the sediment?
I have no experience in that myself, but have thought about it.

 

[corncob]

I need to go back and read that thread. I remember the kegland guy being down on fermenting in these things. I really don't see why.

 

[fluketamer]

yeah they werent exactly down on it they just said they have other better vessels to ferment in like the fermzilla and then gave reasons why. i think it was mostly the wide opening for cleaning. but theres no issue as you know with oxyclean soak (and drop of dawn - lol . i still dont know what the drop of dawn is for but im sure it has a purpose.) you dont need to scrub them to clean them.

and now kegland is advertising them as "fermenter kegs" on you tube so i guess they realized the value in this and got over that quick .




they are the absolute best fermentor/ kegs. i would never buy stainless again.

williams always advertised them as "pressure fermenter tank"


https://www.williamsbrewing.com/Hom...fCC0yVjWJ4BK5iWUObIinhawpwP1xXNH1IhhSlteVVtIC

 

[Bramling Cross]

Back in the late 90s I used to harvest yeast out of imported beer bottles with regularity. Those poor yeast were put through the kind of yeasty torments that would make Hieronymus Bosch giddy.

You're good.

 

[Yesfan]

yeah , what i think i might do is harvest it and then repitch in a very small vol of DME wort say 1 gallon as a "starter"

then just repitch that cake. i figure if the gallon of beer works then it should be fine to repitch the 1 gallon cake in a fullsize batch. as 3rd generation.

rather than risk it in a full batch

btw this is in those 20 l oxebars. i have found they work great as ferment and serve unitank, i bought two and ihave one in a kegerator and the other in a midea 4 cu ft fridge with inkbird. i ferment in one while i serve in the other then switch every 4 to 5 weeks.

by doing this i have shelved all of my kegs, minikegs, pressure growlers, PET kegs/growlers, and even my FV's (fermzilla, ale pales, Mr beer lbk's .

3 to 4 hours of oxyclean soaks gets rid of all the gunk/ kreusen/ hop matter effortlessly.

better than warm pbw blasting,

thanks for the replies

I know your first post is old but, in the future, you could just do another closed transfer to a second Oxebar keg so you can harvest the yeast cake.

 

[odie]

I've been fermenting and serving same keg for a couple years or so...

Not really had many issues with yeast going bad. But I do screen my wort very fine, 100-200 micron, so there is practically no trub, just clean yeast cake.

My kegs take months to finish, not weeks...but I have 7 kegs on tap so each keg lasts a bit longer than normal.

You can use the standard dip tube and harvest yeast on the first pint...

Or a floating one and harvest on the last pint.

either way, you can also re-pitch wort just fine after harvesting...there will still be plenty of viable yeast in the keg.

 

[beersk]

It definitely works. I had one batch take much longer than I expected to begin fermenting after cold crashing a beer fermented in the keg for like 2 months. Personally, I wouldn't go longer than about 6-8 weeks if I'm reusing the yeast from a ferment and serve. I won't be cold crashing for that long again on the yeast I plan to reuse.

Just something to be aware of.

 

[Bassman2003]

I think the best approach would be a dip tube all the way to the bottom. Harvest the yeast right away into a CO2 purged 2-liter bottle using a Kegland Tee. The key to storing yeast is no oxygen. This way you can get the yeast out and serve from the keg without worry.

 

[odie]

I think the best approach would be a dip tube all the way to the bottom. Harvest the yeast right away into a CO2 purged 2-liter bottle using a Kegland Tee. The key to storing yeast is no oxygen. This way you can get the yeast out and serve from the keg without worry.

That's how I started. I got a healthy yeast harvest up front to immediately pitch again. Like a good pint total of yeast cake.

The down side was that after the dip tube cleared and I started serving, ANY disturbance to the keg would kick up the remaining yeast and cloud the next couple pints.

 

[Bassman2003]

True. If this was a fermenter harvest you could shake it up totally in the hopes of getting all of the slurry out. If you shake the full keg the yeast will everywhere inside! But, taking a cold crashed settled cake out first should be a lot of what is in there. And the keg should not have as much or any issues from the yeast over its serving life.

Or, have a 2nd liquid post welded on to the keg lid with a floating dip tube for serving.

 

[Closet Fermenter]

Between this thread and another that I was reading yesterday about closed transfers with a floating dip tube, I got an idea.
In the other thread, the brewer was concerned about clogging his filter with hops while doing a closed transfer through a floating dip tube. One suggestion was to transfer through a standard dip tube, and use a carbonation lid with a floating dip tube attached for serving.

It may be, for those wanting to ferment, harvest yeast, and serve in the same keg that this same solution would work.
1) closed transfer in through the standard dip tube
2) (priming sugar through gas post if carbing naturally)
3) harvest yeast from the bottom using standard dip tube
4) serve from floating dip tube through the keg lid.

Of course, this is with a corny keg, and I have no idea if a similar option is available on the plastic kegs.