Harvesting yeast question

[Hophead2u2]

We just racked a double IPA (which had 16 ounces of hop pellets in the brew) into secondary carboy for some dry hopping. I want to save the yeast from the primary to use in a future double IPA. We read all the advice and watched several videos about the procedure and all went well except now after having set for over 12 hours I only have to layers of separation... a green trub layer and what appears to be a beer layer. I do not see a yeast layer. What did I do wrong or what should I do now?

Thanks for any help.

 

[sendkyleanemail]

It is not advisable to re use yeast from DIPAs.. The hops are difficult to separate, the higher ABV is not good for the yeast and so forth.

Looks like you prolly did everything right, just chose the wrong batch to harvest from.

I like to harvest from low ABV and lightly hopped beers for the above mentioned reasons.

 

[brewski08]

if i were you, i would continue washing them and then pitch in your next hoppy beer.

-remove your "beer layer" with your siphon
-wash your yeast/trub layer with sanitized water
-allow for separation
-repeat process until yeast layer becomes more apparent

repeating this process will refine your yeast and slowly remove your hop particles.

 

[OHIOSTEVE]

Take what you have there and dump ALL OF IT into a big sanitized bucket or jar or carboy. Add a little boiled and cooled water and shake it up.....wait 20 minutes and carefully pour the liquid into another sanitized container, let it set 10-15 minutes.....carefully pour that liquid into your final storage containers. You should get rid of MOST of the hop material that way and have a nice layer of yeast in the bottom to make future starters with... I also find that filling the final storage jars completelt to overflowing helps with longevity of the yeast for some reason.

 

[OHIOSTEVE]

oh yeah are those lids just laying on there?

 

[atom]

looks like my recent (and first) attempt at harvesting yeast (from a RyePA). It never did separate and i tried pitching in a starter that failed. I ended up dumping it and i'll try again with another batch.

 

[Jukas]

Another poster here (sorry I forget who or I would link) showed a great idea in washing. When you have your intial yeast cake/trub + water, set the carboy on it's side for the settling process. This does two things, 1) it lets you easily see when you have tri layer stratification 2) disturbs the trub less as the carboy is already horizontal for the pour.

If it was me and I wanted to save this yeast, I'd take three of those, and dump them into a sanitized 1gal container, adding boiled water if necessary and then set it on it's side for 20 min or so (use a towel to prevent it from rolling). When you see good layer stratification gently pour off the beer/water/yeast layer leaving the trub.

Generally the above posters are right though, you want to harvest yeast from lower alcohol beers (I won't normally do above 7%) less hoppy beers. This gives you less trub and les likely to have highly stressed yeast from doing 9+%. I personally wouldn't harvest from a DIPA, but YMMV.

 

[johnheather125]

It looks like you did not decant from the trub which would have been your first step. You should have added your clean water to primary slosh let seperate then decant off of trub. Sure you will get some trub but not like that. It looks like you just decanted everything to me

 

[dcp27]

i can see a thin layer of yeast on all but the left jar. wasn't the greatest wash, but the separation may become more clear with time. it'll be fine as is, you just may want to build up from a smaller starter or use more than 1 jar

 

[Hophead2u2]

Thank you all for your replies and suggestions! Since this is my first time attempting to harvest yeast I had a lot to learn. I did follow many of yours advice and started to wash them to get some of the hops out and it worked great. I have now ended up with about 3 full mason jars of nice creamy yeast that I will try and use on my next hoppy beer. Thanks again for all the advice everyone.

 

[badhabit]

Take what you have there and dump ALL OF IT into a big sanitized bucket or jar or carboy. Add a little boiled and cooled water and shake it up.....wait 20 minutes and carefully pour the liquid into another sanitized container, let it set 10-15 minutes.....carefully pour that liquid into your final storage containers. You should get rid of MOST of the hop material that way and have a nice layer of yeast in the bottom to make future starters with... I also find that filling the final storage jars completelt to overflowing helps with longevity of the yeast for some reason.

+1
I had the same basic result a couple times. It took a while to figure out what was going on but what I discovered was that when I get a LOT of yeast production in my fermentation I have to use a lot more steril water to wash.