Harvesting/washing (high flocculant) wyeast 1968

[SurlyBrew]

From what I have read about wahing and reusing this yeast, it doesn't sound easy. Does anyone not reccomend trying washing/harvesting this yeast? I haven't done anything of this sort. Maybe thinking about buying a pack of it. Making a starter, and saving it for future batches. I'm trying to find a house strain and from what I have heard this yeast can be used for pretty much any type of beer. I recently made a stone IPA clone using this strain. Curious to see how it turns out. Accidently made a session IPA/ pale ale, but it should be good. How hard is it to save yeast. How long can it last if you freeze it? Thoughts?

Cheers!

 

[bierhaus15]

This is a hard strain to wash. It is possible to 'wash' this yeast with good results, but it is a different process than washing something like S-05. Since the yeast is so flocculative, the key is to essentially separate the trub from the yeast on the bottom. One way to do this is to repeatedly agitate the yeast and then let it settle out over time. The trub and hop material will eventually settle on top the yeast where it can be decanted off the yeast on the bottom. It takes some work, but you can get a pretty clean sample of yeast from it. Though, it is easier for me to just to buy new yeast or wash a small amount for immediate repitching. Also, you don't want to freeze yeast unless you have the materials/equipment to do so properly.

 

[slarkin712]

I just made an ordinary bitter and I'm going to bottle it this weekend. I plan on washing this yeast, so I'll let you know how it goes. I do recall it being super flocculant when I made my starter. So, it makes sense that this yeast will settle below the trub.

 

[JonM]

Can you get a hold of a separatory funnel?

 

[wilserbrewer]

Lots of info here on reusing yeast without washing...

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/reusing-yeast-without-washing-312549/

I say, do as you like...

 

[SurlyBrew]

This is a hard strain to wash. It is possible to 'wash' this yeast with good results, but it is a different process than washing something like S-05. Since the yeast is so flocculative, the key is to essentially separate the trub from the yeast on the bottom. One way to do this is to repeatedly agitate the yeast and then let it settle out over time. The trub and hop material will eventually settle on top the yeast where it can be decanted off the yeast on the bottom. It takes some work, but you can get a pretty clean sample of yeast from it. Though, it is easier for me to just to buy new yeast or wash a small amount for immediate repitching. Also, you don't want to freeze yeast unless you have the materials/equipment to do so properly.

How long/how do you store yeast after making a starter. If I were to to make a seperate starter can I save it for the next time I make a batch of beer. Maybe store in fridge up to a month? Is this possible, rather than washing, just make another starter for storage? Trying to save myself some money here. I will look more into wahing the yeast but sounds like its more trouble/work than I'm looking for.

 

[LLBeanJ]

If I were to to make a seperate starter can I save it for the next time I make a batch of beer. Maybe store in fridge up to a month? Is this possible, rather than washing, just make another starter for storage? Trying to save myself some money here. I will look more into wahing the yeast but sounds like its more trouble/work than I'm looking for.

This is essentially what I do. I tried washing yeast and had mixed results and figured that starting with clean yeast might be a better way to go. I've only been brewing a couple of months, so I can't yet personally vouch for shelf life, but others here have stated that reusing harvested yeast 6 months to a year later is not uncommon.

When I get a new pack/vial of yeast, I make a starter with 120g DME and about 1200ml water. Add the yeast and let them do their thing on the stir plate for about 48 hours. In the meantime, I boil two 8 oz mason jars & lids, fill them with boiled water, and let them cool to room temp. After the starter is finished, I empty the mason jars, swirl the flask so that the yeast is in suspension and fill up both jars, then secure the lids and refrigerate. I also put the flask in the fridge until brew day. When it's time to brew, just decant and pitch. Since I usually do 4g batches, the remaining yeast in the flask is usually enough according to YeastCalc, but if it's not, then I'll do another step up to get the count up to where it should be.

When it 's time to re-use saved yeast, I do a two-step starter (50g DME/1000ml water & 120g DME/1200ml water) over the course of a week or so. By using the above DME/water ratios, the first step is at ~1.02 OG and the 2nd ~1.04. The reason for this is that I figure the viability of the stored yeast may be somewhat compromised, so I'm trying to ease the yeast back to life with the lower OG wort first, then let them go to town with the normal OG wort for the 2nd step. When the 2nd step is done, I'll save off one mason jar as explained above and pitch the rest once it's been chilled and decanted. This way I always have 2 jars in my yeast bank and I always use the older one first.

This system has been worked pretty well for me so far.

 

[SurlyBrew]

This is essentially what I do. I tried washing yeast and had mixed results and figured that starting with clean yeast might be a better way to go. I've only been brewing a couple of months, so I can't yet personally vouch for shelf life, but others here have stated that reusing harvested yeast 6 months to a year later is not uncommon.

When I get a new pack/vial of yeast, I make a starter with 120g DME and about 1200ml water. Add the yeast and let them do their thing on the stir plate for about 48 hours. In the meantime, I boil two 8 oz mason jars & lids, fill them with boiled water, and let them cool to room temp. After the starter is finished, I empty the mason jars, swirl the flask so that the yeast is in suspension and fill up both jars, then secure the lids and refrigerate. I also put the flask in the fridge until brew day. When it's time to brew, just decant and pitch. Since I usually do 4g batches, the remaining yeast in the flask is usually enough according to YeastCalc, but if it's not, then I'll do another step up to get the count up to where it should be.

When it 's time to re-use saved yeast, I do a two-step starter (50g DME/1000ml water & 120g DME/1200ml water) over the course of a week or so. By using the above DME/water ratios, the first step is at ~1.02 OG and the 2nd ~1.04. The reason for this is that I figure the viability of the stored yeast may be somewhat compromised, so I'm trying to ease the yeast back to life with the lower OG wort first, then let them go to town with the normal OG wort for the 2nd step. When the 2nd step is done, I'll save off one mason jar as explained above and pitch the rest once it's been chilled and decanted. This way I always have 2 jars in my yeast bank and I always use the older one first.

This system has been worked pretty well for me so far.

Sounds good to me! Do you know how many billion yeast cells are in each jar about? I'm thinking I would like to make batches of 100 billion cells each, so essentially I've created three wyeast pouches. Thanks for the reply.

 

[LLBeanJ]

Based on calculations from YeastCalc, my jars tend to be in the area of 45 billion, give or take. Of course, it all depends on viability going in (I use the date that I filled the jar for the calculations), how much I need for my particular brew, and how many steps it takes to get the cell count up to where it needs to be. I try to shoot for about 1.2 liters of liquid in the flask when doing the final step up, which is a little over 40 oz and means that one of my 8 oz jars is 1/5th of the total. Using YeastCalc to determine the approx cell count over the step-ups and dividing the total by 5 gives a pretty good measure of how many yeasties are going into a jar as long as the contents of the flask are swirled up so all the yeast are in suspension before pouring. When coming up with step-up plan (again, YeastCalc is invaluable for this), my goal is to have enough yeast to pitch for my brew knowing that 20% will be saved for later and I'll be brewing with just the remaining 80%.

Also, I watched this video this morning and learned that you really shouldn't leave a starter on the stir plate beyond 24 hours because it apparently stresses the yeast, so I plan on only going 24 hours per step from now on.

 

[heckler73]

make sure to use a starter on the reused yeasties. I had a batch appear to do nothing on my first try washing/reusing 1968 without a starter, and I stressed enough to repitch a new pack. Really, I don't think I needed to.

using a starter lets you know they're good to go.

 

[matc]

The video is interesting regarding the 24h time on a stir plate but what if you have a 4-5 months old package. I don't think you'll see any activites if you let the starter on the stir plate for 24h. That's why some people left the culture on the plate for 3-4 days

 

[LLBeanJ]

Agreed. When stepping up using old yeast, I frequently go 36-48 hours for the first step and 24 hours for all subsequent steps.