Harvesting yeast from secondary??

[hopfen]

We think we are loosing yeast during transfer to secondary. We primary in a conical for one week the transfer to glass. Thames Valley yeast - med to low floc. We notice a lot of what looks like yeast in the bottom of the secondary and were thinking of harvesting it to wash and reuse.

thanks,

hopfen

 

[WortMonger]

It's better to harvest and wash the primary for your yeast. It is better/healthier yeast than secondary yeast. There is a lot about this I found with a search, here.

 

[Revvy]

The concern many folks have with harvesting secondary yeast is that if it had "done it's job" of fermenting and then flocculating like most active yeasts should have, the yeast wouldn't have gone over into the secondary, it would have been "one and done."

So it is thought that the lesser yeast, the "second string" is what's in secondary, and if that's the case, then is that really what you want trying to be the main yeast to ferment your NEXT batch?

It's sorta like asking the second string of the Junior Varsity at your local highschool being to break a fourth quarter tie in the superbowl with a minute left to go....It's not exactly the best folks to get the job done when you need it.

 

[hopfen]

Our issue seems to be with the Thames Valley - med-low floc. After 7 days, we rack to secondary and the yeast may not of completely floculated yet. We do not have the ability to crash the fermentation once it is complete to promote floculation. We think the yeast is still suspened and being transfered over to secondary. The real problem is that we are putting another batch of wort on the yeast cake and found that sometimes we will not hit FG. The yeast we though we had to rock out the next batch is actually in secondary. We may have to add more yeast every time.

thanks,

 

[Revvy]

The problem is that you're racking the beer to a secondary after only 7 days. Why?

Are you taking grav readings to determine if fermentation is even done yet before racking?

Personally I think you're rushing the beer off the yeast too soon- you're not even letting any post fermentation conditioning process even occur.

These days many of us leave our beer in primary for a month, skipping secondary altogether- it leaves plenty of time for the beer to finish fermenting, then conditioning/cleanup of the byproducts of fermentation to happen and then the yeast to clear the beer and flocculate.

If we do secondary, like if we're adding fruit or oak or something, I recommend folks make sure that fermentation is complete, and still leave the beer in contact with the primary yeast strain before racking over. I suggest folks take a hydromter reading at day 12 and again on day 14 and if the beer is at or near terminal gravity, then rack it over for a couple weeks.

But I would never dream of leaving my beers in primary for only a week. For one thing, if the yeast takes up to 72 hours to begin fermenting (Which we have a sticky that shows that it is quite common for that to happen) then moving the beer arbitrarily after 7 days means quite possibly that the beer is only having for days to actually ferment the beer.

That's rarely enough time to let the beer finish, let alone clean up....


I think that's the issue rather than needing more yeast or anything...you need to let the beer actually finish fermenting before you rack over.

 

[AnOldUR]

There's nothing wrong with harvesting yeast from the secondary. In fact it has it's advantages. These are not "second stringers" or "unhealthy" yeast. For the most part you will get healthy active yeast that simply have not yet dropped before the transfer. As per the Palmer quote below, repeatedly using yeast from the secondary will result in selectivly choosing the less flocculant trait and that could be a problem down the road. But the same is said of only bottom harvesting from the primary. After several generation you may end up with an overly flocculant version of the strain. Used properly, both methods are valid, as is top cropping. Just don't over use any one technique.

by John Palmer. You can collect yeast from either the bottom of the primary or secondary fermentor. If you obtain yeast from the secondary, it will have only small amounts of trub mixed in and will be easy to seperate. However, you need to be aware that if you repitch yeast harvested from the secondary several times in succession, you will tend to select the less flocculant cells of the population, and future beers will be slow to clarify. But, if you only repitch once or twice, it is not a big deal. I myself usually harvest yeast from the secondary.

edit to say:

To follow the football metaphor. You could also say that the yeast still in suspension are the healthy one’s still able to play. The yeast at the bottom are the injured, tired or less talented players sitting on the bench.

 

[hopfen]

Revvy -

Commercial brewers move product from mash to bottle out the door in 8-10 days.

With the proper pitch and process in place, we should be able to move it out of primary after 7 as we have done successfully before.

We brew 20 gallons a week(Sunday) every week. We don't have time to let it sit for that long.

 

[hopfen]

AnOldUR -

Thanks for the info. This is what we are expieriencing. We plan on harvesting yeast to reuse a few times the discard and pitch fresh.

We will harvest from our secondary this week, wash it and spin up a starter to see how active it is.

thanks again.