Collecting Yeast for Future Use

[truebe]

From what I've read on this forum, it looks like people either wash the yeast cake at the end fermentation or they take out extra yeast from their starter and then build the starter back up.

I'm just wondering if there are pros and cons for the two methods or if it doesn't make a difference. Since I don't usually use a secondary, taking the extra yeast from the starter sounds more appealing so I don't have to worry about it during bottling.

 

[Yooper]

There are lots of ways, and they all work pretty well. Some have gotten into yeast ranching and freezing slants.

The main issue is simply sanitation and/or sterilization so that you reduce the number of unwanted microbes in any yeast you're working with.

If you can be very sanitary, washing/reusing works well for quantity. I get about 4 jars of yeast out of one washed yeast cake. So, even if I didn't reuse again, that's five batches out of one vial of yeast.