Saving yeast at the starter stage (?)

[calgary222]

So I don't like rinsing and washing yeast, I worry too much about sanitation and ruining batches of beer (I brew 20 gallons at a time, so there is cost and time).

I already make starters, so it occurred to me that if I make a big starter for a brew day, why not pour off some into a second flask with prepared medium, grow it then crash it in the fridge/freezer for future use?

I think this has the advantages of highly sterile process and no trub to deal with so you can store smaller volumes.

No sure if this is particularly new or special, but there it is,

Cheers

 

[day_trippr]

Definitely not original, lots of us have been farming yeast via overbuilt starters...

Cheers!

 

[Ridenour64]

Definitely not original, lots of us have been farming yeast via overbuilt starters...

Cheers!

I’d like to hear more about your/others process. Do you just take small portions and store until needed, then make a starter at that time. Or as op noted, make the starter immediately, then store when finished, until needed.

Also, best to store in fridge or freezer? How long can they be stored like this prior to use?

I assume, that pitch counts at this point (at least for most home brewers) is not really able to be tracked?

 

[brew703]

I harvest from starters. I use 50ml vials. once my starter is finished, I remove from the stir plate and fill two 50ml vials and into my fridge. Then when ready to make my next starter I take out the vials and dump in my starter.
I've been doing this for about a year now and it's worked perfectly so far.

 

[Spikybits]

you can save a lot of money yeast ranching from starters. My WLP001 has gone through countless starters and harvests. I have lost count of the generations i have gotten from 8.99

pitch half the starter, then re-add water and DME and let the starter rip. crash and decant. i store in mason jars in my fridge. i have about 12 or so strains in jars.

 

[jtrux]

I build 2L starters, pour 250 ml into a mason jar and put in fridge till next batch (keep lid loose). Then on next batch decant the liquid and add the yeast to next starter, repeat. No real need to build it back up until your next batch.

 

[BrewingAroundtheRrealm]

I harvest from starters. I use 50ml vials. once my starter is finished, I remove from the stir plate and fill two 50ml vials and into my fridge. Then when ready to make my next starter I take out the vials and dump in my starter.
I've been doing this for about a year now and it's worked perfectly so far.

This is exactly what I've been doing for the last year or so. Works perfectly every time.

 

[Day-Day]

I build 2L starters, pour 250 ml into a mason jar and put in fridge till next batch (keep lid loose). Then on next batch decant the liquid and add the yeast to next starter, repeat. No real need to build it back up until your next batch.

This is exactly what I do...I'm on 5th or 6th generation of A38, countless generation of Bell's house yeast (Imperial and bottle cultured), and just overbuilt some WY 1098... and that's just from the last couple of months.

Overbuilding starters is the way to go... if you're already making starters then you don't need any extra equipment...I just dump my 250-300ml excess into a cleaned and sanitized mason pint jar with plastic lid and store it in the fridge. You can write with permanent marker right on the plastic lids and wash it off later.

 

[d3track]

I harvest from starters. I use 50ml vials. once my starter is finished, I remove from the stir plate and fill two 50ml vials and into my fridge. Then when ready to make my next starter I take out the vials and dump in my starter.
I've been doing this for about a year now and it's worked perfectly so far.

add another to this method!

 

[Ridenour64]

add another to this method!

Do you decant the majority of liquid prior, so that your essentially pouring mostly yeast into the vial. Otherwise, isn’t 50ML an extremely small amount?

 

[d3track]

Do you decant the majority of liquid prior, so that your essentially pouring mostly yeast into the vial. Otherwise, isn’t 50ML and extremely small amount?

correct, I chill and decant, then the first pour is into the vial, the rest in the fermenter

 

[Calder]

I've been doing this for years (probably 10+). I'll take about a pint to a quart out of my starter and place in fridge for about a week, and build up my original starter for however I want for the brew.

The idea is the yeast will take in the nutrients it needs to survive the cold temps from the beer, before I decant the beer from the yeast.

After a week I chill some distilled water. When ready, I decant most of the beer from the reserved starter and then add chilled distilled water up to about a half pint, and store in a half pint mason jar in the fridge.

I have several yeasts that I use for various beers (about 12), and it is not uncommon to go a year before using the yeast. I'm sure there are not too many cells left, but I have successfully built new starters from these several times after being stored for over 2 years. I have had a couple that got contaminated, but I have never had one that failed to come alive.

I'll be waking one up this weekend that has been in the fridge for 16 months.

 

[ChaosB]

I also save a portion of each starter in mason jars kept in the fridge. I write on the lid what day the starter was made. If I don't get around to using that strain again within 6 months, I'll take it out and make another starter with it, just to wake the yeast up for a bit before storing again.

 

[TennBrewer]

I have been saving off a portion of each starter for a couple of years now and one of the many things I wonder about is how old is too old or how many generations is too many. Recently, I pulled a jar of yeast I haven't used in over 3 months and noticed a very thin dark layer on top of the yeast cake. I presume these are dead yeast cells and too many can affect the flavor of your beer, but I'm not making beer, I'm making yeast. So, I decant the jar and stir up the yeast cake with the living and the dead. I haven't noticed any evil results, the next day it's all fermented and a nice bright yellow color, same as usual. Is it a good idea to rotate the inventory, say monthly, and make a small starter from each to keep them from dying off? Would this not increase the opportunities for mutations and contaminations? I have a small crop of 5 liquid yeast starters I use, some more often than others. Maybe I should just pare down the number and only go with a couple of liquid yeast and keep a good supply of dry yeast on hand.

 

[harten74]

Yet another here who frequently does this. If you want to be precise with how much you harvest, there's a tool that makes this really easy.

http://www.brewunited.com/yeast_calculator.php#

Set the number of cells you wish to harvest in the Overbuild Cell Count field (I typically do 100 Billion) which typically has you harvesting 400-500ml from your starter which conveniently fits into a small Mason jar. I then label the lids with the date of harvest so I know my approximate viability when I go to build it up into another starter. As others have said, store in the fridge with the lid ever so loose to allow gas to escape. I've run 4-5 batches from a single yeast purchase with zero issues on quite a few diverse strains.