Simple Yeast Storage Procedure

[brewkinger]

If the wort is cooled to mid 50s and the yeast cake is room temp is that okay?.
Thanks

Not ideal, but it will work.

It is best to have the temperature of both be close to the same.
But, since you are pitching onto what is probably an enormous amount of healthy yeast, it may not be too terrible.

Still best to get them close though.

 

[tagz]

Ultimately, the wisdom comes from those in the know zone.
Harvested yeast, whether it be days old or months old is not a magic panacea.
Dependent on the beer to be fermented next, the amount of harvested yeast, whether it be days old or months old, might need a starter to get to proper pitch amount.

I can provide this wisdom..
I have been harvesting yeast now for close to 2 yrs with the help of Jamil and Chris White and Woodland and their literature.
I have dialed my process in pretty well and get really clean yeast.
The ONLY time that I do not make a starter is when I direct pitch on top of an existing yeast cake.

I would NEVER pitch a slurry that is a couple of months old without making a starter, even if I had a proper amount of slurry.
At the very least, you want to wake these little critters up and get them ready for the task at hand.

I am not saying that your way won't work, I am saying that you may not be pitching enough yeast to do the best job that they can.

If your familiar with woodlands articles, you know that the viability of refrigerated slurry does not drop off that quickly. Making a starter for days old slurry is unnecessary.

 

[brewkinger]

I am familiar, but with my process and the way that I harvest, it works best for me.

Through discussions with Woodland we have surmised that an appropriate slurry concentration for my methods is around 1.25 to 1.5 B cells per mL.

I usually harvest and get 2 mason jars with around 100mL and a third jar with around 200mL of slurry.

Using those calculations, I have around 133B (x2 jars) and 266B (x1 jar).

I like to to get the most for my $$, so I make starters with the smaller jars (even if they are a couple of days old and especially when they are months old)
I once pitched the entire larger jar into a batch that needed 275B and it worked fine.

So I will concede that it would be possible to simply pitch all (or most) of my "couple day old" harvested yeast into a new batch, but it would be better for me if I just make a starter.
I have canned sterile wort that I can simply dump into a flask with 100mL of slurry, onto a stir plate and in around 24-36 hours, I have what i need.

I will stick with what I originally said though.... I would never pitch any "month(s) old" slurry into a batch without first giving them a wake up call.

 

[Yesfan]

So I will concede that it would be possible to simply pitch all (or most) of my "couple day old" harvested yeast into a new batch, but it would be better for me if I just make a starter.
I have canned sterile wort that I can simply dump into a flask with 100mL of slurry, onto a stir plate and in around 24-36 hours, I have what i need.

I will stick with what I originally said though.... I would never pitch any "month(s) old" slurry into a batch without first giving them a wake up call.

Just curious how big the wake up starter needs to be as far as DME goes? Would you use the same amount of DME for the slurry or (much) less for a typical fresh smak pack/vial of yeast?

My US-05 will probably be close to 6 weeks to a month old when I use it again. I have not moved it from the fridge since I harvested it. I'm thinking I could probably get away with half the amount of DME I normally use for a starter, but I'll probably use the same amount to see how it goes.


Heck, you guys have seen the pics I've posted. I have a ship load of 05. I guess I could pitch every bit of it if I had to for that next batch (j/k). LOL!

 

[brewkinger]

My wake up starter ends up being around 1.2L.
I use 2 500ml jars of 1.040 wort and then about 200ml of slurry mixture.

 

[r4brewery]

This may have already been posted, but can't seem to find the answer here. Is it better to capture the yeast slurry from the primary or secondary? Is this he same in carboys as if I'm using a conical? Thanks

 

[brewkinger]

I suppose if you secondary that it is better. Less extra junk in there, but a lot of yeast left behind in primary too...
My vote is for both.

 

[jtratcliff]

I think you get the better flocculating yeast by collecting from primary.

 

[Yesfan]

My wake up starter ends up being around 1.2L.
I use 2 500ml jars of 1.040 wort and then about 200ml of slurry mixture.

Thanks.

I have an IPA I'm going to brew that takes US-05. The day before Brew Day, I think I'll make a 1000ml starter wort, and pitch about 200ml of slurry to it and see how it goes. The OG is 1.059.

 

[brewkinger]

Thanks.

I have an IPA I'm going to brew that takes US-05. The day before Brew Day, I think I'll make a 1000ml starter wort, and pitch about 200ml of slurry to it and see how it goes. The OG is 1.059.

I don't think that your starter is big enough.
How old is your 05 slurry?

EDIT: I did some quick calculations this morning on Brewers Friend...
You may be OK after all. Assuming that your slurry is not TERRIBLY old and a very conservative 1 million cells per mL, you would have almost enough cells in just the slurry to pitch. According to Brewers Friend, you need 227 billion cells and the 200mL of slurry would be 200B and that is a conservative estimate. If your washing practices are pretty good and the yeast are clean then your slurry percentage is probably even better.

Waking them up in a small starter like a 1L will saturate the starter and then you can have problems.

I digress on what I originally said in your case if your slurry is fairly young (less than a month old).
Pitch 250mL of it and you should be just fine.

 

[dhelegda]

What is slurry?

 

[brewkinger]

What is slurry?

Washed yeast.

 

[AnOldUR]

Denny Conn:

In the homebrew world, slurry refers to the settled solids in the bottom if your fermenter or storage container. I have no doubt that Wyeaast or others may define it differently, but when homebrewers speak about slurry it's not the suspended yeast.

 

[brewkinger]

Exactly.....
A combination of dead yeast, dormant yeast, hop residue, proteins are found in NON-WASHED slurry.

Dormant (but alive) yeast cells, and minimal other stuff is found in WASHED slurry.

This thread advocates skipping the yeast washing process and instead suggests pouring the raw slurry into clean and sanitized (sterilized) jars.

There are pros and cons to each option.

 

[tagz]

This thread actually advocates skipping the yeast washing process and instead suggests pouring the raw slurry into jars.

 

[brewkinger]

Fixed my above post to reflect the correction. So much has gone on that I lost track.

I personally wash the yeast with good results.

The one time that I have just dumped the slurry, I made sure to note it because I reused that slurry for the exact same recipe because I was worried that hop flavors could affect a different beer in a negative way.

 

[TastyAdventure]

What kind of problems could you have with a saturated starter?

 

[brewkinger]

What kind of problems could you have with a saturated starter?

With a saturated starter, there would be less than adequate growth rate of the cells.

Think of it as the yeast colony is so large that it eats through all the sugars before all of the yeast have a chance to get to the buffet table.

 

[TastyAdventure]

What would the harm be in waking up and feeding just a portion of the yeast? Wouldn't that at least be better than no starter at all?

 

[brewkinger]

What would the harm be in waking up and feeding just a portion of the yeast? Wouldn't that at least be better than no starter at all?

I will leave the better answer to this question up to WoodlandBrew.
IMHO,
I do not think it would be harmful, and better than no starter at all.

The reason for making a starter or pitching an adequate amount of slurry is to have the right amount of yeast and having them ready to start the process of fermentation.

Using the buffet analogy again, it would be like feeding half the colony and having them ready while leaving the other half underfed and not as ready.

 

[christyle]

Yes, better than none, but not ideal.

I just gave this a shot on a "use up random junk i have" IPA, using WLP644 "Brett" Trois from a previous IPA. It was not an ideal unwashed slurry, with lots of junk in it. The previous dryhopping of El Dorado filled the kitchen with sweet tropical smells when I pitched the yeast into a starter. I was looking for this kind of taste in the beer, so no big deal. I will re-capture new yeast on this beer from a less-dirty sample. The beer took off in about 2 hours after pitching though, using a small starter I let go for less than 24 hours.

 

[christyle]

I will leave the better answer to this question up to WoodlandBrew.
IMHO,
I do not think it would be harmful, and better than no starter at all.

The reason for making a starter or pitching an adequate amount of slurry is to have the right amount of yeast and having them ready to start the process of fermentation.

Using the buffet analogy again, it would be like feeding half the colony and having them ready while leaving the other half underfed and not as ready.

People direct pitch vials of WL or packets of Wyeast and it works, but is not ideal. Direct pitching a large slurry of dormant yeast would more than likely be better than that, as there would probably be more viable yeast than a vial. What we're discussing is really getting down to what is the BEST option, and that is up for debate I believe.

In the buffet analogy, would the un-fed yeast become restless and angry, and assault the other yeast once pitched into the larger buffet?

 

[brewkinger]

People direct pitch vials of WL or packets of Wyeast and it works, but is not ideal. Direct pitching a large slurry of dormant yeast would more than likely be better than that, as there would probably be more viable yeast than a vial. What we're discussing is really getting down to what is the BEST option, and that is up for debate I believe.

In the buffet analogy, would the un-fed yeast become restless and angry, and assault the other yeast once pitched into the larger buffet?

What is BEST is not really up for debate.

The best option is to have an adequately sized colony of yeast that have gone through lag phase and growth phase to begin on the fermentation phase.

To me that means taking a smaller quantity of yeast, in my case 100-150mL of slurry and building them up using a starter to attain an active colony of 250-300 Billion cells and then pitch them when they are at full power to begin fermentation phase

OR...

Taking a vial or smack pack and building them up to full power with a starter.

 

[tagz]

I think the issue with doing an inadequate starter may have something to do with the energy reserves that dormant yeast have prepared for themselves. I believe I remember reading in one of Woodland's posts that the yeast nutrients become diminished if the growth rate is not sufficient. Now I could be making that all up and I don't really know the specifics but I could swear he writes about it in one of his posts.

 

[HomeDrewBrew]

Is it possible to pitch harvested washed yeast without a starter if its an appropriate amount?.

 

[brewkinger]

Is it possible to pitch harvested washed yeast without a starter if its an appropriate amount?.

It is.
I personally only do it when my harvested yeast is less than a month old.
Any older and I just prefer to make a quick little starter to wake the little buggers up.

 

[rhys333]

Just curious how big the wake up starter needs to be as far as DME goes? Would you use the same amount of DME for the slurry or (much) less for a typical fresh smak pack/vial of yeast?

My US-05 will probably be close to 6 weeks to a month old when I use it again. I have not moved it from the fridge since I harvested it. I'm thinking I could probably get away with half the amount of DME I normally use for a starter, but I'll probably use the same amount to see how it goes.

At 4:00 pm yesterday I pitched 150 ml of month-old US-05 yeast directly into 4 gallons of 1.048 wort. By 11:00 pm I had the first signs of airlock activity and by 8:00 am this morning it's chugging away every few seconds. I expect it'll be rocking by the time I get home later this evening. No starter required

 

[WoodlandBrew]

As nutrients in the wort are depleted the growth rate slows and the yeast will build up their glycogen reserves. When pitched into a fresh wort there will be another lag and growth phase as a colony. (Although the lag phase will be short if there is a significant glycogen reserve or if the wort is of similar composition, gravity, and temperature as the starter) At the cellular level the cells are constantly going through all phases.

 

[BroStefan]

I have used saved (rinsed & unrinsed) yeast occasional with good results but there is one thing that still confuses me.

The OP has an estimate of yeast density per ML under various situation. But I am not clear about how long the yeast needs to settle before I get to this denisity. Do I need to wait until I get a "hard pack" of yeast? How long might that take?

I am most concerned about direct pitching (no starter) situations. For example:

I brewed 5 Gal of Standard Bitter (keeping hops on the low end) as a "drinkable starter" and now plan to use the yeast for an English Barley Wine. If I rack the beer and harvest the slurry today how long do I need to let the mason jars settle to get to the yeast density the OP presents?

 

[brewkinger]

The OP has an estimate of yeast density per ML under various situation. But I am not clear about how long the yeast needs to settle before I get to this denisity. Do I need to wait until I get a "hard pack" of yeast? How long might that take?

I am most concerned about direct pitching (no starter) situations. For example:

If I rack the beer and harvest the slurry today how long do I need to let the mason jars settle to get to the yeast density the OP presents?

You are looking at this from the wrong angle. It is not about how "packed" (or dense) that the yeast get in the mason jar.

Think of it this way instead:
The OP is advocating NOT washing our yeast and instead just dumping the remnants from a batch of beer into mason jars and letting it settle out.
So in the mason jar(s) there will be a mixture of live yeast cells, dead yeast cells, hop debris, proteins and possibly other adjunct materials.

The "density" that we are referring to here is more of a "live yeast cells per mL of slurry"

There will also be a density of dead cells per mL
and hop debris per mL
and protein per mL

So it matters not how long you let it settle, these density values will not change in that jar.

 

[BroStefan]

But what about the beer in the mix? I will always get a different ratio of beer and "stuff." How do you account for that in relation to the numbers the OP found?

 

[WoodlandBrew]

Do I need to wait until I get a "hard pack" of yeast? How long might that take?

A couple of days in the fridge is normally sufficient. The rate at which the yeast settle decreases with time, so as time goes on your error would go down.

The OP is advocating NOT washing our yeast and instead just dumping the remnants from a batch of beer into mason jars and letting it settle out.
So in the mason jar(s) there will be a mixture of live yeast cells, dead yeast cells, hop debris, proteins and possibly other adjunct materials.

There will be "a mixture of live yeast cells, dead yeast cells, hop debris, proteins and possibly other adjunct materials" independent of the yeast being washed or not. Water washing yeast is good at removing compounds in solution but does a poor job of separating suspended particles.

See here for details:
http://www.woodlandbrew.com/2013/01/yeast-washing-revisited.html

But what about the beer in the mix? I will always get a different ratio of beer and "stuff." How do you account for that in relation to the numbers the OP found?

The numbers are averages based on hundreds of cell counts, but the deviation in measurement may be larger than expected. Variation by a factor of two is not uncommon. In the end, a factor of two isn't bad. Here is a paper talking about pitch rate and beer quality:
http://www.mbaa.com/publications/tq/tqPastIssues/1996/Abstracts/tq96ab09.htm

and some exBEERiments by the brulosopher:
http://brulosophy.com/2015/04/20/yeast-pitch-rate-single-vial-vs-yeast-starter-exbeeriment-results/
http://brulosophy.com/2014/09/15/sprinkled-vs-rehydrated-dry-yeast-exbeeriment-results/

 

[brewkinger]

There will be "a mixture of live yeast cells, dead yeast cells, hop debris, proteins and possibly other adjunct materials" independent of the yeast being washed or not.

Lol..
I did know this but since in a previous post I had been chastised for referring to yeast washing, I was hesitant to do so again.

The mixture would exist washed or unwashed yes....but would there still be a better ratio in washed yeast?

ie. More live yeast and less extra junk?

 

[BroStefan]

This has been very helpful for my understanding. This is what I gather this means about process.


Package the beer leaving about an inch behind.

Swirl it up THROUGHLY!

Pour into sanitized jars and let settle for at least a few days.

Decant most of the covering liquid. Stir up what is left and let that settle until it begins to stratifiy a little.

Pitch the appropriate based on the estimates in the first pitch and my desired pitching rate, leaving behind the bottom layer as much as possible.

If I am consistent about all of this I can learn over time how to adjust the assumptions of cells per ML

Is this a correct approach?

 

[christyle]

I'm not positive there is a need to decant until pitching really.

I haven't gotten into worrying about pitching rates....probably should....

 

[brewkinger]

This has been very helpful for my understanding. This is what I gather this means about process.


Package the beer leaving about an inch behind.

Swirl it up THROUGHLY!

Pour into sanitized jars and let settle for at least a few days.

Decant most of the covering liquid. Stir up what is left and let that settle until it begins to stratifiy a little.

Pitch the appropriate based on the estimates in the first pitch and my desired pitching rate, leaving behind the bottom layer as much as possible.

If I am consistent about all of this I can learn over time how to adjust the assumptions of cells per ML

Is this a correct approach?

Your approach sounds just fine.

As far as adjusting your assumption of slurry percentage, I do not bother.
Woodland's advice has not done me wrong on the last 3 batches.

I assume 1.5 million cells per mL of slurry (I wash my yeast) and thus far the starters I have made have been fermenting actively within hours.
There is no one factor that I could pinpoint as being the solution as I have focused on not only the size of the starter but also the temperature of the starter being the same as wort that I am pitching into.

What I do know for sure is that I enjoy harvesting the yeast and then reusing almost as much as actually brewing.
Saving $7 per batch is also a very happy thought provoking aspect as well.

 

[tarmenel]

Just wanted to post back saying I've just started my last batch with harvested yeast and it worked like a bomb.
Next question is how many times I can harvest the yeast like this? I'm not worried about it straying a bit to make my own home strain.

 

[Artifishal]

These other guys know way more about it than me but fwiw, I just kegged number 8 last night. Number seven was good, number six was amazing. I took number seven to my lhbs and they said a bit sweet. We dialed in to the fact that maybe my yeast are getting old and tired. Haven't tasted eight yet but of its not too sweet, I'm going to go with it for number nine.

It's a 7% IPA I keep doing over and over btw.

 

[brewkinger]

Just wanted to post back saying I've just started my last batch with harvested yeast and it worked like a bomb.
Next question is how many times I can harvest the yeast like this? I'm not worried about it straying a bit to make my own home strain.

5 harvests was the "suggested" rule of thumb in all of the reading that I did when I first started researching yeast.
I personally am on #7 harvest of WY1272
4th of 1056

11th of a Nottingham.

Like the above post, I found great success with all of the 3rd thru 5th harvests.

Someone in this thread indicated that they were up in the 20-30 harvest range of their yeast.
ymmv

 

[brewkinger]

Double post