Cultivating yeast over and over.....

[Steel-Reserve]

Hello. I was wondering how to go about cultivating yeast from a primary carboy.. well, i mean for example: i gathered the yeast from the primary, put it in a sanitized water bottle and put a cap on it and put it in the fridge for later use.. it has a little bit of beer of the surface. I figure i can get that beer out with a turkey blaster or some kind of syphon or what-not. Anyway, what is a good way to make more of that yeast strain to put in another bottle and save that for later use aswell.. any idea's? and again repeat the process over and over.. I will also save the new yeast from the end of the new fermented batch and store that again aswell.. I only have one question, does the yeast lose its potency over time if you do it this way? like a clone of a clone? My guess is that it will be perfectly fine, but i would like everyone's input please, and also how to go about making more.. can I use a constant type of sugar or DME that wont affet the next batch due to the sugar i use?! just throwing my idea's out there.. Thanks in advance.... (sorry for the grammar)

also, can I also cultivate the liquid just the same as the dry? it doesnt seem like a diiference at the point of cloning... the reason I'm asking is because i want to have yeast readily available to me.. and cheaper!!

 

[BigKahuna]

See the sticky "Yeast Washing Illustrated" It's exactly what you want to do.
I think Ed actually holds back some of his starter for the next batch...that seems like a very reliable and easy way of doing it.

 

[Steel-Reserve]

yeah but dont you lose a little at a time..? or maybe i should just read the thread and use the search button instead! LOL! thanks for replying tho!

 

[BigKahuna]

NO...you're good...It's Still a valid question.
Wash your yeast to reclaim what you already have, then keep back some starter for the next batch.

 

[beerthirty]

Most people might add the next batch to an existing cake form dry yeast, but dry is so cheap there is no real reason to cultivate and store it. Save that storage space for lots of jars of cultivated liquid yeast.

 

[Steel-Reserve]

ok cool. i also read the yeast washing illustrated... I guess i was just wondering also how to make more yeast with out having to sacrfice some for a starter and then having to waint until that batch is done to collect more yeast for storage.. cant I make alot of mini starters and then just store the yeast from there? seems do-able..

 

[BigKahuna]

cant I make alot of mini starters and then just store the yeast from there? seems do-able..

TOTALLY!
That's what I was getting at. But here is the Real Life Situation:
48 hours before you make beer, open your yeast (From the store) and Begin your Extra large starter, when it's time to pitch, keep back 2 or 3 jars of your extra large starter and pitch the rest into the beer. Then you have 2 or 3 jars of yeast ready right away. The starter you've held back isn't going to be big enough to do a beer, so you'll need to make another starter with what you've held back, and then you could save back some of that too. Before you know it, You'll have an entire refrigerator dedicated to Yeast Cultures.

 

[BierMuncher]

ok cool. i also read the yeast washing illustrated... I guess i was just wondering also how to make more yeast with out having to sacrfice some for a starter and then having to waint until that batch is done to collect more yeast for storage.. cant I make alot of mini starters and then just store the yeast from there? seems do-able..

The yeast cake you harvest from a single 5-gallon batch is plenty enough to pitch 4 or 5 new beers.

Get a large apple juice jar and fill it 1/3rd with water.

Add the water to the fermenter (after your beer is racked off).

Swirl it around real good an then pour the mix back into the apple juice jar.

Shake it up good and loosen the lid slightly.

Let it stand for 15 minutes and then pour all but the last 1/8th inch of the mix into another apple juice jar. This 1/8th inch is mostly sediment of stuff you don’t want.

Add some more water to the second jar and shake and repeat. The more your do this…the more unwanteds you’ll be leaving behind. I usually just do it twice, unless it was a dry hopped primary.

This is yeast washing at its simplest.

From here you can let divide the mix up to 3 or 4 beer bottles, fill with clean water and cap and refrigerate.

 

[Steel-Reserve]

cool. well i got a batch i saved form my first brew.. i will take a picture of it and show it and see what i have to do from there.. i've read alot about it now, but i guess i'm still kinda sorta puzzled.. as for starting from scratch and saving that yeaST.. seems easier.. but i still wanna use my old yeast that i stored.. when i get home i'll take pictures.. thanks again!!

 

[beerthirty]

Easier it may be because you don't have trub to deal with. Using yeast from the primary gives a lot more yeast, so you can get many more jars of washed yeast. Make sure you boil and cool your water before washing, that does 2 things. It sterilizes the water and drives off excess O2 so the samples store longer in a dormant state.

 

[Layla]

The yeast cake you harvest from a single 5-gallon batch is plenty enough to pitch 4 or 5 new beers.

so if I've harvested yeast from a 3 gallon batch I will have enough yeast for 1-3 gallons of beer?

 

[permo]

Heck, I can gather enough yeast from a 5 gallon batch to pitch 10 more new 5 gallon beers. You really don't need all that much to make a decent starter in advance, then step it up until you approach the correct pitching rates for the beer you are brewing.

I use 1/2 quart jars and I harvest 10 of them from each five gallon batch. I start my starters 3-5 days before and always pitch them when they are actively fermenting. My lag times are measured in hours and I get great attenuation.

If you are going to wash yeast, I reccomend doing so from a beer below 1.060 OG or so. You want happy non stressed yeasties.

It was stated earlier that it is not necassary to wash dry yeast....well once you wash the dry yeast you then have your own strain of personal yeast...it is very worth it to harvest yeast from healthy and succesfull fermentations.

That being said, I actually brew full 5-7 gallon batches of medium gravity beers with the secondary intention of these beers being to harvest a valuable, to me, strain of yeast. I recently brewed a 1.045 gravity belgian ale with some Chimay yeast i harvested from a bottle of Chimay blue so that I could wash many, many samples of this yeast strain. I kept the gravity nice and low as not to stress the yeast.