Got a mason jar of harvested Conan yeast. Now what?

[dierythmus]

Hi all,
I was given a mason jar of harvested Conan yeast from a fellow Brewer. I'm an experienced AG Brewer, but I have never used harvested yeast before. The mason jar I have has about 25-50 ml of yeast (from Heady Topper). If I want to make 5g of a nice 1.080 DIPA, how should I do it? Everything I've read says I need much more of this yeast to pitch. How would I increase/grow it?

I can easily make a 1L starter with it on my stir plate, but I don't know if that's enough. If not, what should I do?

I've attached a picture of what I was given. Thanks!

 

[Wolfbayne]

I would slowly step it up and do a count to insure you have good yeast growth.

Small steps at low gravs until you get it up to 1L +

 

[drgonzo2k2]

It's hard to tell from your picture there, but that looks about what I end up with when I make an oversized starter.

Basically I start with a vial or packet of yeast from White Labs or Wyeast, and then I make a 3L starter at 1.04OG instead of just a 2L starter. I harvest 2, 500mL mason jars for future use, and then use the remaining 2L as the starter for the beer I'm brewing.

Then in the future I use one of my harvested 500mL jars like I would a vial of fresh yeast, making another 2L starter to brew with, or a 3L starter to harvest 2 more jars and brew with the remaining 2L.

I'd probably just go with making a 2L starter from your jar and brew with that. Keep the jar in the fridge until you're ready to make your starter, and you should be able to pour off all the old beer except 50 mL or so. Then just give that a good shake and pour into your starter.

Also, I've found Conan yeast to get a lot more attenuation on generation 2, 3, and so on than from generation 1, so you might want to account for that when designing your beer. From my last notes I got 81% attenuation on gen 2 and 88% attenuation on gen 3.

 

[m00ps]

I would start with a 1L starter like a week before brewday. Let that go for 2 days or so, then split it into 2 other vessels ad add another ~1L of wort split between the two. Ill use growlers or something usually if I dont have a spare flask