Harvesting WLP300 Hefeweizen

[RodrigoEick]

Hi.

I jut used this yeast for the first time and I have some questions about the correct way to handle the yeast collection.

Can't remember where I read it, but was said that this yeast is very non flocculant, and if I collect it from the yeast cake after fermented I could end up collecting only the more flocculant cells of it, and with time it won't have the characteristics of the Hefeweizen. Someone already did that?

With that in mind, I made a starter 1 liter bigger than I needed, and collected this 1 liter in 2 jars and pitched the rest in the wort. It have a nice krausen by now.

2 questions.

Will it be ok to collect the trub and reuse it?

Below photos of the collected yeast from the starter. Will that be enough to make another starter?

Thanks for any help

View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1430830524.315166.jpgView attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1430830536.337344.jpg

 

[RodrigoEick]

Just quoting that those jars have a convex bottom, and not much yeast on the middle of the pot if I look from under it

 

[d3track]

Have they been stored for a few days? There may be a bit more settling if not.

With that small amount of yeast, I'd star with a small (<500mL 1.020-ish) starter, then step up to a full starter.

You can use most calculators to get the right count from a slurry

 

[skw]

I think you'll be fine, go ahead and make a starter.
BTW, Hefeweizen yeast is a prime candidate for top cropping. Harvesting the Krausen should give you plenty of healthy active yeast, and it's common for German Hefeweizen brewers to do that: http://www.unertl.de/img/diebrauerei/brauen4.jpg

 

[RodrigoEick]

I think you'll be fine, go ahead and make a starter.

BTW, Hefeweizen yeast is a prime candidate for top cropping. Harvesting the Krausen should give you plenty of healthy active yeast, and it's common for German Hefeweizen brewers to do that: http://www.unertl.de/img/diebrauerei/brauen4.jpg

Thanks! I will do that next time. This beer had a big krausen and it filled the blow off tube.

 

[RodrigoEick]

Have they been stored for a few days? There may be a bit more settling if not.

With that small amount of yeast, I'd star with a small (<500mL 1.020-ish) starter, then step up to a full starter.

You can use most calculators to get the right count from a slurry

Then been sitting in the fridge for 3 days only. They will stay there for quite some time, hope they settle so I can decant the started beer

 

[RodrigoEick]

Thanks! I will do that next time. This beer had a big krausen and it filled the blow off tube.

So I went ahead and harvested (top crop) the krausen after it slows down activity. Such a huge krausen!

So now I have one more 500ml jar with a nice thick yeast layer of around 100 ml with some trub and water.

For my next hefe, the online calculators tell me I will need 192 billion cells, which is about 192 ml of thin washed yeast. Thinking in just pitch 192ml on that collected jar straight in the wort. Shake it up well to mix the suspended yeast with the settled ones, and pitch.

Is that okay?

Sorry, first time using collected yeast and first time with this Hefe yeast