Harvesting yeast from the secondary

[ziggy13]

Hi everyone,

I have recently begun to harvest yeast from either my primary or secondary to save on brewing costs. This time there was a ton of trub at the bottom of the primary, so I decided to just dump it and to harvest from my secondary. I am currently dry hopping my all-grain while aging on oak chips. I didn't really think about this too much when I dumped the yeast cake from the primary...does anyone have any good ideas or techniques for harvesting yeast from a secondary that's full of leaf hops and oak chips?

The only thing I can think of is using a sanitized strainer to strain the oak and hops out, but I think there will be some chips and hops that sank to the bottom. Any thoughts?

 

[Kaz]

The only advice I've heard on harvesting from a secondary is to not do it. Harvesting yeast from the secondary is selecting for the less flocculant yeast that didn't drop out in the primary. This could lead to your successive beers finishing cloudy.

 

[ziggy13]

I've heard that too, but at this point it's either harvest from the secondary or buy a $7 vial of yeast. I was planning on doing this brew with harvested yeast and then not reharvesting anymore since this will be their 3rd generation.

Kaz do you shop at Mr Steves out of curiousity?

 

[Kaz]

I have shopped at Mr. Steve's in York and Lancaster. I live right down the street from Lancaster Homebrew, so I'm in there a good bit too.