Re-Pitch yeast from blow off?

[Anubis]

I just brewed a half batch of Double Belgian Wit and noticed more yeast in the blow off jug than I had in my starter. There was also tons stuck to the inside of the carbooy's headspace.

So if I sanatized the water, tube, jar and any foil I use t cover it could I pitch the yeast back into the beer?

Like a dummy not thinking of oxidation I shook the carboy to get the yeast back in to the beer It proceeded to blow off the tube and then I pushed the bung inot the carboy (seperate issue).
Did I expose the beer to oxygen even if it was pumping out co2 and was stilll in the begining phase of fermentaion?

 

[Anubis]

Also, could I "wash" the yeast from blow off and save it for a future batch?
Anyone ever try that?

 

[Bob]

NO NO NO NO.

There's no telling what's fallen into that blowoff bucket. Discard it. Only - ONLY - harvest yeast from the fermenter.

I sincerely doubt you exposed your beer to any significant amount of oxygen.

Bob

 

[hal2814]

If you really wanted to harvest from the blow-off, the best method would be a 2-stage blow-off. Blow off the fermenter into a sealed, sanitized, empty container that has it's own blow off tube to a bucket of liquid.

But for your current setup, yeast are so hard to see that we didn't really know they existed until fairly recently in human history. Our knowledge of yeast is newer than the German purity laws. You didn't really see yeast. You just saw its side effects. There's still plenty of yeast in your fermenter to finish the job.

 

[pericles]

I would NEVER harvest from a blow off. There is NO DOUBT that there is wild yeast and bacteria in there, and it will result - at best - in a less than stellar batch of beer the next time around.

As for oxygenation: yes. You have oxygenated your wort. But probably not THAT much. Make sure you drink the batch within a month or so of bottling/kegging, and you'll probably never even notice.

 

[hal2814]

I would NEVER harvest from a blow off. There is NO DOUBT that there is wild yeast and bacteria in there, and it will result - at best - in a less than stellar batch of beer the next time around.

Bass used the Burton Union system up until the mid-20th century to harvest its yeast from blow off. It's not something that has ever interested me to try but I see no problem with doing it. It obviously works more often than it doesn't.

 

[pericles]

Bass used the Burton Union system up until the mid-20th century to harvest its yeast from blow off.

Sure. In fact, most commercial breweries can do all kinds of things with yeast that are beyond the scope of your average home brewer. But that's just the point: they're beyond the scope of the average home brewer. With a NORMAL blow off tube, the brewing yeast will absolutely mix with wild yeast.

If you can figure out a way to create a sufficiently sterile environment to collect blow-off without sacrificing too much of your living space, that's great; it's just not worth it to me when yeast is so inexpensive to either rinse or buy new.

 

[Bob]

The Burton Union system is by no means equivalent, or even analogous, to a blowoff system. BY NO MEANS. It is a completely different system.

The point of harvesting yeast in a Burton Union system - still in use at Marston's, by the by - is to skim yeast from the trough above the barrels, as the still-fermenting beer is returned by gravity to the barrel. It is at no point part of the system to pour the entire contents of the trough back into the barrel. The point is to skim yeast from the trough to pitch the wort you're brewing today, in a commercial brewery that brews multiple times every day.

Please. Don't try to justify doing something so needless.

Regards,

Bob

P.S. For those interested in kind-of replicating a Burton Union system at home, see here.

 

[hal2814]

The Burton Union system is by no means equivalent, or even analogous, to a blowoff system. BY NO MEANS. It is a completely different system.

The point of harvesting yeast in a Burton Union system - still in use at Marston's, by the by - is to skim yeast from the trough above the barrels, as the still-fermenting beer is returned by gravity to the barrel. It is at no point part of the system to pour the entire contents of the trough back into the barrel. The point is to skim yeast from the trough to pitch the wort you're brewing today, in a commercial brewery that brews multiple times every day.

Please. Don't try to justify doing something so needless.

Regards,

Bob

P.S. For those interested in kind-of replicating a Burton Union system at home, see here.

There is no need to introduce additional yeast to Anubis' current batch and given the way blow off was likely collected there it would be a bad idea to do use that blow off for any future batches either. I don't think any of us are arguing that.

In Anubis' second post, he asked if it were possible to "wash" yeast from blow off and I provided possible a means to do so. pericles was arguing that yeast should never be used from the blow off. My point was that it being blown off isn't the problem. The problem is that we generally blow off into an open container. Blow off into a sealed, sanitary environment and it won't matter if you're merely skimming the yeast Burton Union style or dumping the whole contents into a new batch. And FWIW, I disagree that Burton Union isn't a blow off system. It's just not the blow-off system that homebrewers typically use. The part where something is blown out of the fermenter into another container makes it blow off in my book.

 

[Anubis]

Wow. So if under sanitized conditions and as long as the blow off jug is covered w/an airlock let's say. I could harvest that yeast as it is "newborn" yeast from the top of the foam where I would be scraping it from in other methods. Because they are new yeast they should be healthy I'm assuming.

My idea was I could brew with a liquid yeast, wait for blow off, wash or just decant and pitch into a starter. This way I would have another starter of yeast ready in a couple days to brew again. My brew days are thurs & Sunday so this would work well for me.

 

[Bob]

You can do that. There are, however, some caveats.

The problem with harvesting in this fashion - which is the same as skimming, really - is that after the first few generations you'll select for a very powdery strain. That means your beer will have problems clearing.

When you harvest from the settled yeast in the bottom of the primary after the ferment is complete, you get a selection of all types: Powdery, normal and early-flocking. You are also assured your yeast is from the cleanest of possible environments.

I highly suggest you do that as opposed to the system you've outlined. While some breweries skill skim and pitch, that's a quite specialized technique that goes with a yeast strain that's been designed and bred to that procedure over a long period of time. One of the last breweries to use the Burton Union system - Marston's - has reportedly been using their house strain since the 1830s. So not only do they have the procedure down to a science, the yeast strain itself has adapted over time to fit the procedure. No yeast you're going to find in the homebrew supply pipeline is going to do that.

Many, many homebrewers harvest and wash their yeasts after the primary ferment is over. You'll always harvest more yeast than you're likely to use, so after one iteration of harvesting, you'll have plenty for the next week's two brew days.

At least try that before you try mimicking the Burton Union or any other system of skimming yeast.

Cheers,

Bob