First time, trying to save yeast for reuse later.

[imnothardcore]

Alright, so I am a new brewer and I would like to save my yeast for another brew. Im not using this yeast on my next 2 brews for sure.

The yeast is from a wyeast pack and is finishing up a 5 gallon batch of a British Ale.

Anyway,

what I have down so far is extract the beer leaving the sediment at the bottom.

Take the settlement and pour it into a sanitized mason jar.

How long can it stay in this "dormant" state?

Do I screw the sanitized lid on tight?

do I keep it in the fridge, if so for how long?

so next questions,

At some point I need to feed them, but I read somewhere not sugar.

so what do I feed them and when?

I saw after feeding them to leave the cap on loosely, do I place them back in the fridge or what ballpark temperature should it be kept at?

OK,

so its time to use them. Do I need to do anything to prep them for use?

I keep seeing "starter" should be added with it but I don't fully understand what that means.

thanks for any help at all, I know I just asked about 65 questions in one post. Just trying to make sure I fully understand.

 

[mtnagel]

Yes, that is a lot of questions

How long will the yeast cake last? - I think I read in the "Yeast" book to reuse it within 2 weeks as the viability drops pretty quickly. You could probably go a bit longer. Take a look at the "repitching from slurry" tab at http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html and enter a farther back harvest date and you'll see the viablity drops to 10% after around 2 months.

Storage - in the fridge. I have mine in a canning jar and I vent the container every couple days. I think it could be putting off some CO2, so venting is good. I screw the lid on tight, but you could leave it slightly open so it vents on it's own.

Since you said you aren't using it for awhile, what I would do is at some point in the next few weeks, learn how to make a starter. It's not that difficult. It's like making a mini batch of beer, but way easier. Google it for directions.

Then I would plan to take a portion of your saved yeast cake and make a starter using it. This will help to dilute out some of the bad things in your yeast cake, wake up the yeast and then put them in a more hospitable environment for when you make them dormant again. This new yeast slurry should last for at least 6 months in the fridge and when you are ready to use it again, you can make another starter to prepare it for your next batch.

As for how much yeast cake to take to make a slurry, let's assume you have 3 billion cells/ml (you can see MrMalty's descriptions of a thin and thick slurry and the yeast concentration on the repitching from slurry tab). The yeast cake I save is usually very thick and barely pourable, so let's say 3 billion/ml. Also let's say you have 85% yeast and the other 15% is other stuff. Then let's say you wait 3 weeks to make this starter, the viability would be 61% (from MrMalty). And let's say I want to target 100 billion cells going into this starter. Feel free to change any of those numbers and rerun my math.

So the math becomes:

100 billion cells wanted divided by 61% = 163.9 billion. Divided by 85% = 192.8 billion. Divided by 3 billion/ml = 64.3 ml of your yeast cake needed.

If you take that 64 ml and make a 1 L starter with it, you could have 227 billion new cells (so you created 127 billion new cells and you diluted out the bad stuff). I like to use http://www.yeastcalculator.com/ for the math here. Let it ferment for a couple days and crash in a fridge. After 2 days, you can move this to a smaller container (canning jars work great for this). Pour off most of the liquid at the top, but leave enough volume to be about equal to your smaller container size. Swirl the yeast into suspension and pour into the new container trying to minimize headspace. Store this in the fridge and use like any liquid yeast you buy, like Wyeast smack packs or White labs vials.

That became longer than I wanted it to, but you did have a lot of questions I'm sure I created way more questions, so let me know what you don't understand.

 

[webby45wr]

This thread is also a great resource: Yeast Washing.

I washed some Wyeast 1028 in October and just used it this past weekend (with a starter) and it's going great. So, you can save them for a while and they are still viable.

 

[solbes]

This is what I do.

-1 day before you rack off cake, sanitze 2 mason jars (or squeaky clean spaghetti sauce jars). Fill up to 1/2 with water in both. Heat in microwave and Boil for 20-30 seconds
-Cool for 15-20 minutes with cap resting on jar on stove top
-Screw cap down and place in fridge for next day's use
-After racking off beer, sanitize 1 cup measuring cup. Scoop the upper trub layer and fill jar #1. Screw cap back on
-Swirl vigorously and set aside for 15 minutes.
-After 15 min, pour off upper fluid (where purest yeast should be) into jar #2 and fill to the top of the jar. Screw down lid and place in fridge.
-Decant off water when ready to pitch to wort or starter. Swirl bottom contents and pitch. Done!

Agree that if its more than 2 weeks till brew date, feed the yeast in a 1 gall container with boiled & chilled DME solution (about 1 cup DME per 1 liter of water). Larger starters for larger gravity brews.

Cheers!

 

[Paradigm]

I heard that you want to only keep the fallout from the secondary, as the first is going to be a lot of hop-residue and trub

 

[jdot6]

I've been wanting to do the same thing. Thanks for all the info guys

 

[solbes]

I heard that you want to only keep the fallout from the secondary, as the first is going to be a lot of hop-residue and trub

Yes and no. I asked the same question awhile back, since there is no trub in secondary. Myth or no myth, the thought is that the yeast that stayed in suspension from primary into secondary may be more resistant to floculation than those that fell out in primary. Plus they may be more stressed from sitting in the alcohol for longer.

Washing from one jar into a second helps settle out most of the hop, grain, and protein trub as it falls to the bottom of jar #1. Again, so the theory goes.

I'm sure you could harvest from a short duration secondary just fine if you had enough yeast. Will the yeast have the same floculation properties as was initially pitched? Maybe, maybe not.

EDIT: And BTW for the OP, I would say 4-6 months fridge time with a starter to wake them up is pretty bullet proof if you have good sanitation. 6-9 months is a little less certain. You want to watch your starter carefully for actitivity and infection. 9-12 months is getting pretty far out there IMO, but people have gone beyond that.

 

[aryoung1980]

I heard that you want to only keep the fallout from the secondary, as the first is going to be a lot of hop-residue and trub

Most people recommend taking the yeast from primary but secondary will work just fine. Keep in mind that you are selecting the least flocculent yeast from secondary. Each subsequent batch you brew with yeast harvested from secondary will take longer to floc out. This will also improve your attenuation since your yeast will stay in suspension longer.


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[NuttyProf21]

For long term storage and banking you could start doing slants.

 

[imnothardcore]

thanks a lot guys,

Im going to reread all of this, take notes and probably ask more questions as I nail down an order/process checklist.

I really appreciate it.

I have nothing to offer as payment for your knowledge other then my likes... haha

The link shares are great too so I know where I am looking.