My experiment.. seems to have worked

[OHIOSTEVE]

I was perusing the board a while back and came across a post by someone saying that if they bottled a beer, and were planning on brewing soon using the same yeast that they just scooped some slurry into a ziploc bag and stuck it in the fridge. I bottled a beer over a week ago with s-05 yeast and opened up a ziploc bag and poured some of the trub from the carboy into the bag, sealed it up and tossed it in the beer fridge PLANNING on brewing in the next day or two. That was over a week ago. I brewed last night and decided to try the slurry in the baggie. I sanitized the baggie and some scissors and snipped the corner off of the baggie and squeezed the yeast into my carboy, THEN poured the beer through a funnel over the yeast. I had pretty good activity within a couple of hours and as I was typ[ing this out to tell you about it my wife informed me that " YOUR BEER IS COMING OUT OF YOUR BUBBLER" . I had to stop and go put a blowoff tube on it.
It seems that yeast are pretty hard to mess up.

 

[bad67z]

Steve,

That's awesome, no starter or anything.

 

[Baldy_Beer_Brewery]

It is too soon to say that you had a success. Just because you have apparent and vigorous fermentation, it doesn't mean you don't have an infection. However I suspect that what you did will turn out with good results. I just don't know that I would want to try it or keep yeast long term that way.

 

[OHIOSTEVE]

Steve,

That's awesome, no starter or anything.

nope no starter

 

[OHIOSTEVE]

It is too soon to say that you had a success. Just because you have apparent and vigorous fermentation, it doesn't mean you don't have an infection. However I suspect that what you did will turn out with good results. I just don't know that I would want to try it or keep yeast long term that way.

An infection that fast? And you are correct that long term this way probably wouldn't be a good idea... again it was intended as a bottle today, reuse the yeast in a couple of days thing.

 

[Runyanka]

I did this same thing recently, except I poured the yeast slurry into a 1/2 gallon glass jug, with an airlock. I also had an explosive fermentation, and didn't have to pay for yeast twice!

 

[Marquez]

Congrats!

I bet it'll be just fine.

Have you tried top cropping or krausening?

Consider it for your next experiment. Its pretty fun to do and to see the 2nd batch take off.

 

[Baldy_Beer_Brewery]

An infection that fast?

Could but not likely. What I was meaning was it may be too soon to proclaim success. You are still most likely 99.9% fine.

 

[akthor]

I brewed an Irish Stout and while the wort was cooling I went down and kegged a nut brown ale that has been in primary for a month. Brought the fermenter upstairs after wiped the crud ring out with a paper towel that was near the top, cleaned the lid, sprayed the whole inside of the fermenter down with star-san and pitched the whole batch of irish stout on top of the slurry left from the nut brown.

OMG talk about explosive fermentation. Guess I shouldn't have used the whole thing

Had to clean my blow off tube and jug every hour or so for the next 6 hours.

Not to thread hijack but can you just keep using the same yeast over and over you know like you do with sourdough bread yeast? Some bakeries are using the same yeast from decades ago. Supposedly the older the yeast is the better bread it makes. Is this true with beer yeast?

 

[benharper13]

I'm thinking of making my first apelwein today and didn't want to run buy more yeast do you think I could pull this off when I make it today?

 

[akthor]

Apfelwein uses wine making yeast usually. Not sure what you will end up with using beer yeast. People have done it but I would make sure what they ended up with is what you want.

 

[OHIOSTEVE]

Congrats!

I bet it'll be just fine.

Have you tried top cropping or krausening?

Consider it for your next experiment. Its pretty fun to do and to see the 2nd batch take off.

not only have I not tried em.... I have no idea what they are so I have some research to do. I have washed yeast and that worked even after 6 mos of storage, I have pitched on an entire yeast cake with good success. But this seems easier than the washing for a quick turn around, and to me better than using an entire yeast cake.

 

[Marquez]

Look here about open fermentation and top cropping:
http://www.brewingtv.com/episodes/2010/5/17/brewing-tv-episode-4-open-fermentation.html

In particular, the video the brewer samples yeast from the foam for use later from an open fermenter. A similar process can be done carefully from carboys and a long skinny spoon, or from fermenting buckets.

Mike "Tasty" McDole said he uses the spoon method on several of the podcasts found on The Brewing Network.

Yeast health is at its greatest here. Drawback is that you are now selecting yeast that may not flocculate well in later generations, resulting in beers that may never clear unless filtered.

This adds another question for experimentation: "When to krausen to yield the best yeast health and adequate flocculation?"

I never bothered to explore this question. I am happy to get several beers out of the same yeast.

 

[TheFear1980]

That is very cool but yeast isnt really expensive lmao