How I harvest yeast

[homebrewdad]

It's basically the Brulosopher method (I give him full credit), with perhaps a slight redneck twist. Full post and images are here.

 

[ImNoExpert]

About how much yeast is in that final vial pic?

 

[homebrewdad]

About how much yeast is in that final vial pic?

It's hard to say definitively, as some strains compact more or less, but the fill level is pretty comparable to what I see in White Labs vials, so I feel pretty good spitballing it in the neighborhood of, say, 80-100 billion cells.

On a fill like that, I usually go on and use 100 billion as the starting number the next time I calculate it out, and it seems to have worked very well. Of course, even Troester says that calculators are around +/- 15% accurate.

 

[Beer-lord]

I do something similar to this. Usually, for brew day, I make a 3 liter starter and only need a liter or so and I store the rest in mason jars. Seems to be working well for me over the last year. I try to get at least 4 brews out of 1 pack of yeast if things go well.

 

[homebrewdad]

I do something similar to this. Usually, for brew day, I make a 3 liter starter and only need a liter or so and I store the rest in mason jars. Seems to be working well for me over the last year. I try to get at least 4 brews out of 1 pack of yeast if things go well.

Nice.

 

[Phunhog]

It's hard to say definitively, as some strains compact more or less, but the fill level is pretty comparable to what I see in White Labs vials, so I feel pretty good spitballing it in the neighborhood of, say, 80-100 billion cells.

On a fill like that, I usually go on and use 100 billion as the starting number the next time I calculate it out, and it seems to have worked very well. Of course, even Troester says that calculators are around +/- 15% accurate.

It might be quite a bit less. I was harvesting yeast the same way and had my yeast counted. My vials were around 35 billion even though they looked identical to a fresh WL vial. It must be the way WL packages their yeast

 

[Beer-lord]

I've done more thinking of my process and wonder if.....
making a 1.037 starter is fine but if I save 1/2 of this 1.037 starter to use 4 months from now and make a starter with it, is that not harming the yeast by making another starter of about the same gravity?

I wish I could make more and pitch the extra yeast saved but for a great majority of my high gravity beers, it wouldn't be enough.
Maybe I'm just OCD!