Holy Moley Yeast is Expensive!!

[boo boo]

I've thought about that before, but man, that looks like a ton of work. Is it as bad as it seems? (translation: tell me it's not as bad as it seems.)

For me it was mainly a matter of not beig able to get fresh yeast on a whim.
Liquid yeast isn't available to me here now other that what I order on line.


Sure it takes a little time to prepare and to reuse but now I have the strain I need to brew a beer without waiting for an order to arrive. Besides it was fun
doing something brewing related and wondering if it would work as well as others would have you beleive.

Did it work for me? you betcha.

 

[disaffected]

Here's what I do - I haven't bought yeast (except for new strains) in a year:

Take one pitchable tube of liquid yeast - make beer. From the primary harvest slurry into a couple of mason jars (sanitized please). I can easily fill two pint jars w/slurry. Store in fridge. (To actually harvest the yeast pour ~6-8 ounces of distilled H20 into carboy after you have racked beer, swirl it around to mix in the slurry & pour into jars through santizied funnel - wipe lip of jars & carboy w/alcohol to sanitize those to before pouring - simple.)

For my next batches I take a sanitary spoon & take a couple scoops of slurry from my mason jars - make a starter with those scoops & pitch into new batch.

I continue this process until I run out of the slurry from the original mason jars (generation 2) - on the last of those I reharvest the yeast from the primary and repeat the whole process - now I have two jars of generation 3 yeast. Repeat again. I have gone up to 4 generations without seeing any differences at all.

This method gets 25 uses or so (2 jars each generation w/3 uses per jar). If you harvest from every batch, instead of when your runout you can get 250 or so uses from one tube if you go through 4 generations. (1200 uses through 5 generations).

It takes an extra 5 minutes when racking from primary to secondary to do this. (I always make starters anyway - so no extra time taken there either...)

That's a cogent explanation. Thanks!

My main reluctance in harvesting yeast has to do with the fact that the trub that is left over in the primary has a lot of material, hop and grain residue and cold break, that is not yeast and is smelly and gross. Ok, please forgive me for saying it is gross, but it just is.

The trub with the yeast in it is not just living cellular organisms, There is a great deal of dead organic matter that will rot and spoil over time, just like food that you leave in your fridge for too long. I don't really want to see it or smell it or leave it laying around in my fridge. I'd like to know how to get just the yeast without the rest of the trub, if that's possible. If not, I'll probably just buy fresh yeast every time.

 

[pbowler]

That's a cogent explanation. Thanks!

My main reluctance in harvesting yeast has to do with the fact that the trub that is left over in the primary has a lot of material, hop and grain residue and cold break, that is not yeast and is smelly and gross. Ok, please forgive me for saying it is gross, but it just is.

The trub with the yeast in it is not just living cellular organisms, There is a great deal of dead organic matter that will rot and spoil over time, just like food that you leave in your fridge for too long. I don't really want to see it or smell it or leave it laying around in my fridge. I'd like to know how to get just the yeast without the rest of the trub, if that's possible. If not, I'll probably just buy fresh yeast every time.

thats what I meant by "all that other Crap in the trub"

however if it works for folks, who am I to question.

as long as I can get two batvhes from the $7 yeast I'll be happy.

 

[sonvolt]

If you are making starters anyway, is there a problem with pitching only half a vial of White Labs into your starter and saving the other half for another brew. After all, if you let your starter ferment out all the way, you'll have the same amount of yeast cells in the end of that fermentation.

The only thing with this would be to consider expiration dates and ensure that the vial is sanitary as you pour out of it.

 

[Desert_Sky]

I know you don't need to, but on my last batch I made a starter from dried yeast. I had a 1/2 layer of yeast in a 1000ml erlenmeyer flask. I had 5.5 gallons take off in 3 hours. Not bad for .96 cents.

If you are making starters anyway, is there a problem with pitching only half a vial of White Labs into your starter and saving the other half for another brew.

I would just go ahead and make two at the same time, and put the extra one back in the fridge If you can.

 

[Teedocious]

That's a cogent explanation. Thanks!

My main reluctance in harvesting yeast has to do with the fact that the trub that is left over in the primary has a lot of material, hop and grain residue and cold break, that is not yeast and is smelly and gross. Ok, please forgive me for saying it is gross, but it just is.

The trub with the yeast in it is not just living cellular organisms, There is a great deal of dead organic matter that will rot and spoil over time, just like food that you leave in your fridge for too long. I don't really want to see it or smell it or leave it laying around in my fridge. I'd like to know how to get just the yeast without the rest of the trub, if that's possible. If not, I'll probably just buy fresh yeast every time.

Ok - couple ways to handle this.

Let's start with this: some trub is actually beneficial for yeast growth - trubless fermentations seem not to attenuate as well as fermentation with some trub (some trub not a ton of it.

I eliminate most trub before it ever gets to the primary. I use an immersion cooler in my kettle, after the wort is down to ~80F I stir the wort with by brew spoon for 2-3 minutes in a circular motion. After I stop stirring I let the wort in motion come to a stop naturally (a couple more minutes). This whirlpool accumulates a lot of trub & cold break into the center of the kettle. Then I siphon with my auto siphon from the outer edge of the kettle into my primary - this effectively removes a lot of trub. (After primary ferm. I generally have about 1/2 inch of trub in carboy.)

After I rack the beer into a secondary I have yeast cake & a bit of trub in the primary. I add some distilled water to this & swirl & put in mason jars. Now when you refigerate the jars you will see that the water, yeast, and trub (the little that remains) seperates nicely in the fridge (water on top, then yeast cake, then trub on bottom).

When I take a couple spoonfulls of the yeast cake to put into the starter, I can scoop directly from the yeast and avoid the trub (very very little gets into my starters).

This pretty much answers your question - even if you don't whirlpool & have a ton of trub in the primary you can just scoop from the yeast in the mason jars. Really easy. (If you have a ton of trub, you might want to add a bit more water when you harvest the yeast and fill three mason jars...)

Hope that helps. Don't let some trub scare you away from this - you won't have to buy yeast anymore... Couldn't be easier.

 

[disaffected]

Thanks, Teedocious. I'll try that when I rack my Firehouse Amber Ale to secondary. If I can just get past the initial repulsion, I should be able to manage it.

 

[pbowler]

I'll probably do my AG Stout Saturday, I'll give that a Try as thats the yeast in question...

 

[MorBro]

i gotta step in here.

a couple of things: if you have a brewery nearby, or even not so near if you plan in advance, take a couple of clean mason jars, ask the brewer, and we have never had one not fill our jars with yeast. that is probably 100 times as much yeast as in a smack pack.

i asked a brewer if there was a problem with overpitching so much yeast. he looked at me like i was crazy.

we regularly use the slurry from one batch (the primary) for the next batch. if we are going to a lighter beer, we will rack the beer off the trub in a few hours or overnight. a surprising amount of that stuff settles in a half hour.

but, then we got a dozen carboys, usually half of them working away.

it is also easy to wash yeast and save it for longer periods
http://www.wyeastlab.com/hbrew/hbyewash.htm

MorBro

 

[Teedocious]

I think it is theoretically possible to overpitch - but in reality a homebrewer is probably never going to have this problem. I generally use a 1L starter, start stepping it up a couple days before brewday - normally get visible fermentation in less than 3 hours - sometimes 2 hours.

For a really big beer I make a bigger starter - 2L or so & start a day earlier.

I've never got yeast from a brewer - but its a great idea - and you can't beat the price. (I've got 5 breweries within 10 miles - hmmm.)

 

[Dr Malt]

Pbowler:

The yeast from the first brew is collected from the primary fermentation. In my process, I do a primary fermentation in the typical palstic bucket and after about 4-6 days I transfer through a siphon into a glass carboy for secondary fermentation. The yeast and trub in the bucket is collected into the sanitary container I store in the frig until i use it again. To separate the trub from the yeast, I add the sterile water, mix well and most of the large trub pieces settle in the 1-2 minutes befroe pouring off the active yeast. The active yeast will remain in the liguid as they have not flocculated and settled.

Dr Malt

 

[Dr Malt]

I collect the yeast from the primary fermentor not the secondary fermentor. It is the slug in the bottom of my plastic bucket. I do a primary fermentation for 4-6 days then transfer through a siphon to a glass carboy. The slug is transf erred to a sanitary container and stored in the frig until my next brew. I wash the yeast with sterile water and to swirling and sitting for 1-2 minutes allows most of the trub and flocculated yeast to settle out. Note that I pour off the liguid containing the active yeast and use it as a starter culture that I grow on fresh sterile wort I prepared from dry malt extract. I allow this starter to go over night and use it the next day when I brew.

Dr Malt

 

[Dr Malt]

Sorry for the double post. I use dry malt extract to make my wort. It is boiled for 15 minutes or so and then cooled before use. I do not recommend making it and storing it. Make when you need it.

Yes, the trub and flocculated yeast is discarded.

Dr Malt

 

[pbowler]

awesome thanks!!

I assume that there is enough edible (bacterially speaking) sugar in the the DME then to get them started?

 

[goat]

I just racked an English bitter and I made a Honey ale. I noticed I was out of yeast so I pitched the the new wort into the Bitter fermenter and it started in an hour. Has anyone ever pitched another batch into a fermentor that was just racked? How many times can you do this?

 

[alemonkey]

I'm planning on pitching a Hop Rod Rye clone onto a cream ale cake today.

 

[Bernie Brewer]

Pbowler:

Your financial analysis of the cost of making a batch of homebrew seems correct. I would suggest, as someone else has here, that you collect your new yeast from your first brew and use it again for about 3-4 times. That way you spread the cost of the smack pack over more batches of beer and your cost goes to $2.00 per batch or less. I collect the yeast and trub out of my primary fermentor(bucket) after each brew and store it in a frig until I need it. I collect it in a sanitized plastic container with a screw top lid. I store it in the frig with the lid on loosely for CO2 escape. When it comes time to use it, I add about a cup or so of sterile water (water boiled in a covered pan on the stove for 15 minutes and then cooled), swirl, let sit for about 2 minutes or so and pour the liguid off the settled trub into my sanitized jar I use to prepare a yeast starter. I then add sterile wort to the yeast and add an air lock and let sit for a day or so until I brew. You will find that reused yeast from such a starter begins fermenting in fresh wort much quicker than the original smack pack. This is because you are adding a much larger amount of yeast to the volume of wort, or in brewing terms, you have increased your pitching rate. I only use my yeast 3-4 times because 2 things begin happening when you reuse yeast. One is they change slowly by adapting to the environment or the beers they have been in as well as mutate (genetic adaptation). Second, along with your yeast, there are some bacteria along for the ride as we do not work under sterile conditions as home brewers. Thus, it is best if you buy new yeast after about 4 bactches to start fresh. I usually only want about 4 batches of a given style of beer and want to change yeast anyways.

One other comment, if you look at the time, effort and cost of producing and supplying liquid pure strain yeast, the $7.00 is actually a very fair price. If you decide to propagate your own yeast, you will need a large pressure cooker to sterilize things, test tubes, dry malt extract, agar, other lab glassware, etc, not counting your time. You will have to buy a lot of yeast to equal the cost of propagating your own. Price it out and see.

Just my 2 cents.


Dr Malt

So, if I understand your post correctly, you are collecting your yeast and storing it, and washing it as you use it, rather than washing it all right away, is that right? Sounds simple enough. I've been washing mine right out of primary, but your method seems as if it takes up a lot less fridge space. Of course, since I use glass for primary, I don't know howI'd get the yeast out of primary without washing
right away..........hmmmmmmm......

 

[goat]

Hey Dr.,
I did not wash anything, I just pitched the wort in the already, yeast filled white bucket? Any comments??

 

[Teedocious]

goat-

If you time your brewing correctly you can throw wort on your primary cake a bunch of times. (Take care not to expose the yeast slurry to anything.) You could probably go 4-5 times easily without tasting any difference in the world. Then again, if you accumulate a ton of trub & assorted nastiness, ditch the yeast. If you wash it you can go longer.

 

[Beer Snob]

I'm sure this is a no brainer of a thought.... but this all is nice and dandy if your brewing the same style. My style tends to vary quiet a lot... wheat one brew... stout the next.... but I certainly like the freezing thought though....

 

[TheJadedDog]

For my next batches I take a sanitary spoon & take a couple scoops of slurry from my mason jars - make a starter with those scoops & pitch into new batch.

Just wondering if you could be more precise about how much yeast you are taking to make your starters (as this seems like the best method I have researched so far). Are we talking 2 big tablespoons? 2 small ones? more than 2?

Just curious as I really want to try this.

Also, where do you guys get your mason jars?

 

[Teedocious]

Just wondering if you could be more precise about how much yeast you are taking to make your starters (as this seems like the best method I have researched so far). Are we talking 2 big tablespoons? 2 small ones? more than 2?

Just curious as I really want to try this.

Also, where do you guys get your mason jars?

1. I'd say a 2 big tablespoons is about right. - The amount really isn't as important as you might think, because you are going to make a 1L (minimum - better for 2L) starter.

2. I had a tough time finding mason jars at first - target & walmart & grocery stores had nothing. Finally found a good selection at ACE hardware. (I'm guessing any of those hardware stores that aren't big box might carry them - OSH, ACE, etc. - especially if they have a "home" section with pots & pans, etc.) I have a couple cases (12 jars each) of pint jars. I use them for canning wort & for keeping yeast.

If I remember right, a case of 12 pint jars was $9-10.