Prices Going up Again... Yeast

[PastorofMuppets]

My local store (great fermentations) has raised prices on wyeast packs from $7.49 to 8.99 per pack. Ouch. I need advice on reusing yeast. I only have ability to make 2 liter starters. I cringe every time I rack a beer to a keg and have to pour the slurry down the drain.

1. How do I get started saving and reusing yeast from the post fermentation slurry? What equipment do I need?
   
   
2. How else can I reduce this cost in my brewing? Its just getting more and more expensive.
   

I love to shop local and my local store is well known in the USA as a great shop, but I might have to do my shopping online to maximize the dollars I can afford to spend on my wonderful hobby.

Thanks alot

 

[madscientist451]

Pretty simple, get some quart mason jars sanitize with star san, dump the slurry in the jar, put on the sanitized lid and place in your refrigerator.
If I'm brewing again in a few weeks I just shake it up and chuck the whole quart in. If its a longer than that, I'll make a starter.
The beer on top of yeast acts as a preservative of sorts, and I've stored yeast that way for a year or more.
Some on line retailers have Wyeast for $6.99 but I try to support my LHBS and since I use it over and over I don't mind paying a little more.

 

[whiskeyjack]

There are multiple ways to use 1 yeast pack for multiple brews.

1. Yeast washing - Washing with boiled and cooled water, or the sloppy trub into a jar/bottle method. This method can get you around 4-6 jars of yeast that can be reused.
2. Pitching a batch onto a yeast cake from a previous batch. Similar to the sloppy method above, but you basically only get 2 uses of it.
3. Use a brand new yeast pack, make a 1-2 Liter starter, cold crashing it for a few days. Pour off 90-95% of the beer on top leaving the clean yeast cake. Then pour it into 120 ml mason jars or 50 ml centrifugal tubes/baby 2-Liter vials. This will give you 2-6 jars/vials of really clean yeast. I use the centrifugal tubes that come pre-sterilized, when ready to use just pop one open, pour in and tighten. Gives me 25 ml yeast in each one. I get 4-6 from each yeast pack.
4. Freezing yeast.

As far as what you will need for saving yeast post fermentation, literally all you need is some jars/vials/bottles. You can save yeast in almost any thing. I've used baby food jars because they are small. I prefer the sloppy trub method, as I've read the boiled water can be hard on yeast. With the sloppy method all you do is rack your beer, shake it up to get the yeast in suspension, wait 15 minutes or so fpr the heavy stuff to settle and gently pour off into a sanitized jar.

 

[phyllobeddo]

To give you an example.... I bought a pack of WYeast 1318 in late 2016 and have been propagating it since. I brew 2.5 gallon batches. I take one yeast pack and make a starter and split that into three jars. Two of those three jars is used for making beer and the third is used to make three more jars worth. If the jars sit too long in the fridge, I make a starter and dump them all in and then split them into three again. 1/2 gallon RO to 8 oz DME for ~1040 OG. YMMV of course, but the 1318 I bought in 2016 makes great beer.

 

[mj1angier]

A lot of the cost of yeast is shipping- either to you or to a store and then to you in higher cost. My local brew store just started carrying a yeast from a place only 30 miles away. Super fresh, higher count and less cost. He hopes to phase out most of the others over time

 

[flars]

This thread on reusing yeast is recent. It will be a starting place.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/first-time-washing-yeast-help.649562/#post-8290542

 

[Pkrd]

3. Use a brand new yeast pack, make a 1-2 Liter starter, cold crashing it for a few days. Pour off 90-95% of the beer on top leaving the clean yeast cake. Then pour it into 120 ml mason jars or 50 ml centrifugal tubes/baby 2-Liter vials. This will give you 2-6 jars/vials of really clean yeast. I use the centrifugal tubes that come pre-sterilized, when ready to use just pop one open, pour in and tighten. Gives me 25 ml yeast in each one. I get 4-6 from each yeast pack.

And you can build up a big starter from any of those and start the process again.

 

[Yooper]

I buy yeast two or three times per year, and just save the slurry from the fermenters by pouring it into sanitized mason jars and use and then save again. It works out great.

 

[kh54s10]

I make a starter with an new pack a little bigger than I need for the beer being brewed. I then take 5 ml yeast, 5 ml glycerin, and 10 ml water put that in a 20 ml vial. I make four of them, put them in the fridge overnight. The next day I shake them up and put them in a Styrofoam box in the freezer. There are cold packs inside and more outside to counteract the defrost cycle. Last month I revived a vial of American Wheat Wy1010. It was frozen in February 2013. The beer turned out great.

If I made 4 new vials every time I used one for 4 generations, I could brew 256 batches from the original pack. One more generation would give me 1024 batches.

But, so far I have used up one set of a yeast and have not gone through the last vial of any of the others. I will make 4 new vials from the last one. I don't think I want to use just one yeast for the next 10 years or so.

 

[Jayjay1976]

I've never bought any yeast strain more than one time; of course I'm not that experienced yet, only 16 batches so far. 2565, 3522 and 3787 are my house strains I use for everything. I have a bunch of little 4oz mason jars that I sanitize then fill from the yeast cake after racking to the bottling bucket, and store them in a plastic tub in the back of the fridge. 3-4 months old yeast saved this way works for me with zero problems.

 

[Beewrangler63]

I have learned to do yeast slants. Make my starter from original package of yeast, make the slants from residual yeast left in the package, and then re-use the yeast from the batch that I made from the original package, a couple of times. And on the plus side of all that, I get to play mad scientist with test tubes, beakers, alcohol lamp and a stir plate

 

[Northern_Brewer]

My local store (great fermentations) has raised prices on wyeast packs from $7.49 to 8.99 per pack. Ouch.

You should be grateful, here in the UK the standard price for Wyeast/WL is ~US$9.50, and for eg Imperial and Gigayeast is ~US$13.

I have some sympathy, as liquid yeasts are a bit of a nightmare for stockists - homebrewers demand an ever-wider choice of something that has a very short shelf-life. On the other hand, that can present opportunities - I'd guess ~70% of the liquid yeast I've bought lately has been out of date but still rescuable with a starter, I've picked up some for as little as ~US$1.40. We also have one store here that will sell 5 out-of-date packs of their choice for ~US$14, which tend to include at least one Brett and a lager, but it's a good way of forcing you to brew out of your comfort zone.

 

[beernutz]

If you have friends at a nearby brewery that may be a source for free or cheap yeast. My brewclub had a brewday at Fairhope Brewery (wonderful people there) last December and they filled two quart Mason jars with San Diego super yeast for me. I gave one jar to a friend and have used the other to ferment my last four 10 gallon brews.

I saved a quart of it left over from my last brew in a Mason jar and plan to keep using it for at least 4 more brews. It really is super too as it figuratively burns through wort like a house on fire.

 

[Redtab78]

I make a starter with an new pack a little bigger than I need for the beer being brewed. I then take 5 ml yeast, 5 ml glycerin, and 10 ml water put that in a 20 ml vial. I make four of them, put them in the fridge overnight. The next day I shake them up and put them in a Styrofoam box in the freezer. There are cold packs inside and more outside to counteract the defrost cycle. Last month I revived a vial of American Wheat Wy1010. It was frozen in February 2013. The beer turned out great.

If I made 4 new vials every time I used one for 4 generations, I could brew 256 batches from the original pack. One more generation would give me 1024 batches.

But, so far I have used up one set of a yeast and have not gone through the last vial of any of the others. I will make 4 new vials from the last one. I don't think I want to use just one yeast for the next 10 years or so.

This is what i do as well, i still have a crap ton of vials that i will have to dump as they wont survive an out of country move, but im taking 4 fresh packs with me that i will be using for years once im there.