Pitching washed yeast, make a starter?

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OptimusJay

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Making a rye IPA Sunday with an OG around 1070. I will be using WLP001 that I harvested and washed from a previous brew back in May. I typically do starters with a stir plate and liquid yeast tubes. I am unclear of how to accurately so a starter and calculate the number of cells with the yeast a have from that brew back in may. I suppose I could just pitch what you see in the pic in lieu of a starter. Any suggestions?
Jay

image.jpg
 
Making a rye IPA Sunday with an OG around 1070. I will be using WLP001 that I harvested and washed from a previous brew back in May. I typically do starters with a stir plate and liquid yeast tubes. I am unclear of how to accurately so a starter and calculate the number of cells with the yeast a have from that brew back in may. I suppose I could just pitch what you see in the pic in lieu of a starter. Any suggestions?
Jay

According to the Mr. Malty pitching calculator, you would need about 1.1 liters of slurry for 5.25 gallons of 1.070 wort so I would say you definitely would want to make a starter and probably step it up.
 
Definitely make a starter, and it may take a little while for the yeast to "wake up." I have a starter going from rinsed yeast right now that didn't show any sign of fermentation for more than 24 hours. It's going along fine now but I was a little worried that it was dead.
 
I had about 100ml of washed yeast from a brew a month ago sitting in the fridge. S-05 strain. I made 500ml of DME wort for it split into two jars, and woke it up while I was brewing. By the time I was done chilling the yeast starter was bubbling away with a krausen! Way faster than I expected but I went with my original plan to leave the wort in the fermenter overnight and pitch in the morning. I only pitched half of the starter because the 2nd container maybe had a smell (not sure, was a washed, boiled, sanitized pickle jar but going to play it safe). My OG is 1.056 so not as stressfull for the yeast I assume.
 
One wouldn't really need a starter for rinsed yeast if you pitch it day of or within a few days, but since it has been 5 months I would make a starter to check its viability. What did you end up doing Jay? I just rinsed by yeast after bottling and threw it into my APA fermenting now. My problem with rinsing yeast is I am always worried I am leaving a lot of yeast behind in the trub layer and so I am putting selective pressures on my yeast and not getting the full spectrum of flocculation and attenuation I would have if I used a new vial or smack pack every time. But $8 adds up with every batch so if I can rinse and reuse my yeast for as many batches as I can then that's savings in my pocket for more equipment.
 
One wouldn't really need a starter for rinsed yeast if you pitch it day of or within a few days, but since it has been 5 months I would make a starter to check its viability. What did you end up doing Jay? I just rinsed by yeast after bottling and threw it into my APA fermenting now. My problem with rinsing yeast is I am always worried I am leaving a lot of yeast behind in the trub layer and so I am putting selective pressures on my yeast and not getting the full spectrum of flocculation and attenuation I would have if I used a new vial or smack pack every time. But $8 adds up with every batch so if I can rinse and reuse my yeast for as many batches as I can then that's savings in my pocket for more equipment.

I've read that you should only reuse yeast a few times before they start mutating too far away from the original. Anyone had any distinct issues with this?
 
Making a rye IPA Sunday with an OG around 1070. I will be using WLP001 that I harvested and washed from a previous brew back in May. I typically do starters with a stir plate and liquid yeast tubes. I am unclear of how to accurately so a starter and calculate the number of cells with the yeast a have from that brew back in may. I suppose I could just pitch what you see in the pic in lieu of a starter. Any suggestions?
Jay

Jay,
I have searched many of hours for an answer you have asked. with no definitive answer that I have found, this is what I do and have had good results. I make a 1liter starter from 50ml of rinsed 05 yeast , 24 hours later I step it up to 2liters,after 24 hours I put in fridge and leave for 4 days, decant, pitch into 5gallon batch of 1.060-1.070, usually takes off with in 2-5 hours. Don't know if this is over pitching because I tried to search to get an estimate of how many viable cells I could have in 50ml of rinsed yeast depending on age. The numbers were all over the place, so I continue to do what I stated above.
Hope this helps P.S. my rinsed yeast is usually 2-3 months old
 
brent77 said:
I've read that you should only reuse yeast a few times before they start mutating too far away from the original. Anyone had any distinct issues with this?

One can probably get a healthy 5 generations. I've heard of people going up to 10 but that would definitely depend on your technique and how well you treat your little buddies. If you maintain slants or plates you can keep the same strain of yeast indefinitely. I know some breweries have been using the same yeast strain for hundreds of years.
 
Thanks for all the feedback. I ended up making at 1500 ml starter using the yeast in my pic. I made the starter on a Friday evening and it took around 24 hours to get going. I brewed Sunday and pitched the entire 1500 ml starter and visible fermentation was evident within 4-5 hours. Glad I made the starter.

Jay
 
I've had much better results doing a starter with washed yeast (versus no starter), usually 1000ml-1500ml. After reading Jamil's Yeast book, I've never gone over 3 weeks before repitching. 5 months, wow, that's gutsy.
 
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