Reusing Yeast from Bottle Condition Beer/Harvesting Yeast

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lilbova3

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I bottled a beer about a week ago and I didn't get a proper cold crash and a lot of the yeast got into the bottled beer. I want to try and save this yeast and reuse it but I'm grabbing this yeast from 25+ beers. Here's what I was thinking about doing and wanted to get some advice or suggestion. This yeast will be collected over weeks probably and won't be reused/re-pitched any time soon. I'm thinking of doing the same procedures that you do for yeast washing but just collecting the yeast from a bottled beer. Here's my plan.

1. Boil a 1 gallon jar in water in a big pot for 20 minutes.
2. Dump off some of the water, about 1/2-3/4 of it to help make room for the addition of the slurry that will be coming from the bottom of the bottle.
3. Store in the fridge to allow the water to cool.
4. After opening a beer to drink, poor yeast/beer slurry into jar and place back in fridge.

Simply keep adding yeast from the beer to the gallon jar until all beers are drank. Then, if all yeast falls to bottom and they look clean go ahead and reuse, if I feel all yeast has not fallen to bottom and need to wash them as if coming from a fermenter I will.

Any ideas, suggestions? I don't see why I would need to harvest the yeast like some threads on here say and putting it in DME and having it ferment if I'm not using it right away. What do you think?
 
My preference would be to just culture up from 1-2 bottles worth. With opening & reclosing your container over a period of time, you are allowing a chance for introducing unwanted microorganisms. I would pitch dregs of 1-2 bottles (you can make sure the beer tastes OK first--quality control!) into about 4 oz to a a half bottle of sterile wort, then scale up to a pint and then a quart.
 
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