Simple Yeast Storage Procedure

[christyle]

It's tough to split those, and keep it clean. I'd say scoop out 1/3-1/2 and put it into your starter flask/container, then let it free rise until you pitch some wort on it. I use the smaller ~500mL jars and dump in all the slurry once I decant. Keeps it a little more sanitary, and again, unscientific, but I haven't noticed any ill effects.

 

[Artifishal]

It's tough to split those, and keep it clean. I'd say scoop out 1/3-1/2 and put it into your starter flask/container, then let it free rise until you pitch some wort on it. I use the smaller ~500mL jars and dump in all the slurry once I decant. Keeps it a little more sanitary, and again, unscientific, but I haven't noticed any ill effects.

Yeah I used to dip in a small quarter cup ladle into a wide mouth jar. I usually just pitch the entire jar now. I did notice on a Belgian that the ester character was lacking when I pitched the entire jar.

 

[enkamania]

My first beer using this was a success. I'm all into the simple and this worked perfect for me

 

[tagz]

x

Did you get a little trigger happy on the reply button?

 

[bucfan1234]

I tried this method for the first time yesterday. Pitched a jar of Nottingham that I harvested from a Nut Brown Ale into a Mild that I boiled yesterday, and I had activity in the air lock within three hours. Hoping for a good result.

 

[Yesfan]

I harvested some ESB yeast that was used in a brown ale I kegged yesterday. Does it matter if you use slurry from a darker beer to ferment a lighter beer? I guess I could always do a split batch with slurry vs a fresh smack pack to see, but was curious if anyone else had ran into this situation.

 

[iijakii]

I harvested some ESB yeast that was used in a brown ale I kegged yesterday. Does it matter if you use slurry from a darker beer to ferment a lighter beer? I guess I could always do a split batch with slurry vs a fresh smack pack to see, but was curious if anyone else had ran into this situation.

Personally I've never seen an effect, but I've never done a side-side. Try to let it settle and not use too much of the beer if you're worried about it, but realistically what's a cup or two in 5gals gonna do?

I also don't worry about hoppy yeast like some people do. I got some ESB yeast from a local brewery (HUB) that was almost green there was so much dryhop particulate in it. Head brewer told me not to worry and that they will reuse it like that in milder beers without issues. Said maybe if it was a pils he'd be more cautious, but that's about it. I've kept the same philosophy and haven't noticed anything at all either.

 

[Yesfan]

Personally I've never seen an effect, but I've never done a side-side. Try to let it settle and not use too much of the beer if you're worried about it, but realistically what's a cup or two in 5gals gonna do?

I also don't worry about hoppy yeast like some people do. I got some ESB yeast from a local brewery (HUB) that was almost green there was so much dryhop particulate in it. Head brewer told me not to worry and that they will reuse it like that in milder beers without issues. Said maybe if it was a pils he'd be more cautious, but that's about it. I've kept the same philosophy and haven't noticed anything at all either.

Awesome. Thanks. I may still do a side by side just for curiosity's sake.

 

[STMF]

Brolosopher http://brulosophy.com/2015/03/02/sloppy-slurry-vs-clean-starter-exbeeriment-results/ did a side-by-side exbeeriment with a fresh starter and slurry from a Schwarzbier.

 

[skitter]

Oy, using Mr Malty I realized I have been waaaay overpitching...

My typical harvest is 250-300ML of yeast. This is in beer that has been filtered through a fine mesh hop sack going into the fermenter to remove the majority of the trub.

I did the calculations through Mr Malty and discovered that if my slurry is pretty clear, and my typical beer is 2.5g in the fermenter, I should be using 50ml more or less of my slurry, not the 200+ML I have been using...

I guess my harvested yeast is now able to be used for 3-4 batches per harvest...

 

[Finlandbrews]

Doesn't it make sense instead of washing to just take portions of the starter and pour into Mason jars for next batches? And before pitching those retake a part of it? Maybe to take yeast after fermentation can help in selecting more floculent or more attenuation yeast...

 

[iijakii]

Doesn't it make sense instead of washing to just take portions of the starter and pour into Mason jars for next batches? And before pitching those retake a part of it? Maybe to take yeast after fermentation can help in selecting more floculent or more attenuation yeast...

But if you are harvesting plenty of yeast from the fermenter, why even make a starter? You don't need to grow more.

 

[christyle]

Vitality Starters aren't a bad idea, just to wake them up.

http://brulosophy.com/2015/06/29/ye...e-cell-count-vs-vitality-exbeeriment-results/

 

[BeavStu]

Question: when saving and storing yeast by this method can/should you only reuse it in beers of similar style/ call for the same strands of yeast? Or does it matter?

I ask because as I'm still fairly new home brewer. 5 batches. Each batch has been a new style, therefore different yeast strands. I haven't Brewed consistent styles so haven't had need for same Yeast . Thanks

 

[rhys333]

Question: when saving and storing yeast by this method can/should you only reuse it in beers of similar style/ call for the same strands of yeast? Or does it matter?

I ask because as I'm still fairly new home brewer. 5 batches. Each batch has been a new style, therefore different yeast strands. I haven't Brewed consistent styles so haven't had need for same Yeast . Thanks

You can reuse yeast in different styles no problem. Some say not to use yeast harvested from a dark beer and pitch into a light beer, but you're using so little of it that it's not a problem at all. Some say not to reuse yeast from hoppy beers too, but that's generally fine. The only thing I try to avoid is pitching yeast from a high gravity beer into a low gravity beer. The fear is the yeast may be unhealthy or stall out. Other that that, I would just go for it and make sure you pitch the appropriate amount of yeast.

 

[iijakii]

Aside from that, sounds like you're asking if you can cross styles of yeast? Nothing BAD will happen, it's just entirely taste dependent. For me using a Belgian yeast in an IPA is terrible, some people love that though.

 

[GQT]

When you guys said, unwashed yeast should be used within * days or max * weeks I was always wondering, then what about harvesting yeast from commercially obtained beer? Unwashed yeast had been sitting there under pretty much stress, plus CO2 pressure, uncertain temperature and all that.
So I saved some unwashed US-05 yeast from my brew kegged on 25th Oct (150 ml of beer just as it came from the fermenter, left for a day with loose cover to off-gas, then tightened and refrigerated) and plated it on 30th Dec.

Under microscope it was all death and devastation. Maybe one live cell to a few hundred dead; no budding cells. Altogether looking at it was sorta depressive.

I stuck it into incubator for about 80+ hours at 25C.
By now there are 3 plates:
one with no growth at all - this was taken from liquid fraction;
one with some massive but ugly discolored growth - taken from the cake;
and one with some reasonable growth - taken after shaking up the jar and letting it sit for a few minutes.
I'm not really willing to try to brew my next batch on this yeast as there is still risk that it has been too stressed or has high percent of mutations, or whatever.
But is there a less risky way to check whether this yeast is still workable?
I have fresh liquid yeast at hand so I'm not desperate for yeast, just want to know it just in case. I feel too lazy to set up a mini-batch but if I could try on a pint of unhopped 1040 DME I probably would go ahead. Do you think this way would be able to prove any point?

Thanks!

 

[NeoBrew]

Sure, why not boil the DME for 15-20 minutes with a few hop pellets in it and throw it in a jar to ferment?

You could probably determine something about it from the resultant beer.

 

[rhys333]

When you guys said, unwashed yeast should be used within * days or max * weeks I was always wondering, then what about harvesting yeast from commercially obtained beer? Unwashed yeast had been sitting there under pretty much stress, plus CO2 pressure, uncertain temperature and all that.
So I saved some unwashed US-05 yeast from my brew kegged on 25th Oct (150 ml of beer just as it came from the fermenter, left for a day with loose cover to off-gas, then tightened and refrigerated) and plated it on 30th Dec.

Under microscope it was all death and devastation. Maybe one live cell to a few hundred dead; no budding cells. Altogether looking at it was sorta depressive.

Not sure I'm following. Was this yeast harvested from the primary and put in cold storage right after racking, or did you just pull some beer from your keg? If the latter I'm guessing this would make all the difference in cell health. I've bottle harvested a couple times from commercial beers and takeoff was really slow requiring multiple starter step-ups. I'm guessing there were only a few cells per hundred alive, but what struck me was how the yeast bounced back. Its pretty voracious stuff and out-competes just about anything else (usually). Its wise to use good practices of course, but even used and abused it keeps doing its thing. Reminds me of that Chumbawamba song Tubthumping. You know... "I get knocked down, I get up again. Never gonna keep me down".

 

[Yesfan]

Ha! The next time I hear that tune, I'll be thinking of beer yeast now.

 

[rhys333]

Ha! The next time I hear that tune, I'll be thinking of beer yeast now.

And you'll have that song virus all day today too

 

[GQT]

harvested from the primary?

Precondary... Primary and secondary. I don't secondary my brews. What I saved was the scums sitting in the very bottom of my conical. When the beer that was flowing into the keg got too cloudy I disconnected the keg and redirected the flow to fill up a few jars. So it had never been in any other vessel, just fermenter and jars. Sterile transfer, no oxidation, no contact with atmospheric air - pressed out of fermenter by some gentle push of Midisart2000-filtered CO2; jars were flushed with same sterile CO2 as well. Nearly no trub there, I shut it off at the first signs of unwanted particles in the stream.

boil the DME for 15-20 minutes with a few hop pellets in it and throw it in a jar to ferment

Yeah probably this is what I'm going to do. Not that I expect much of yeasty taste, after all US-05 has never been known for taste, but it'd be interesting to see the speed and character of fermentation. This yeast really doesn't give up, so it clearly deserves its chance!

 

[tagz]

Precondary... Primary and secondary. I don't secondary my brews. What I saved was the scums sitting in the very bottom of my conical. When the beer that was flowing into the keg got too cloudy I disconnected the keg and redirected the flow to fill up a few jars. So it had never been in any other vessel, just fermenter and jars. Sterile transfer, no oxidation, no contact with atmospheric air - pressed out of fermenter by some gentle push of Midisart2000-filtered CO2; jars were flushed with same sterile CO2 as well. Nearly no trub there, I shut it off at the first signs of unwanted particles in the stream.


Yeah probably this is what I'm going to do. Not that I expect much of yeasty taste, after all US-05 has never been known for taste, but it'd be interesting to see the speed and character of fermentation. This yeast really doesn't give up, so it clearly deserves its chance!

Perhaps you picked up a rough layer. When people yeast harvest as above they tend to swirl and get an even mix. It's also possible that the conical shape caused more pressure to be exerted on the cake, damaging some cells. How long was it in primary?

 

[GQT]

Perhaps you picked up a rough layer. When people yeast harvest as above they tend to swirl and get an even mix. It's also possible that the conical shape caused more pressure to be exerted on the cake, damaging some cells. How long was it in primary?

Kegged on day 17. Drinkable right away but sat in the fridge for another 20+ days while I was on trip.
There was hardly any pressure on cake, 5 gallon batch, not really that heavy. But the yeast was in the fridge for 2 months, perhaps that is what mattered.

 

[rhys333]

Kegged on day 17. Drinkable right away but sat in the fridge for another 20+ days while I was on trip.
There was hardly any pressure on cake, 5 gallon batch, not really that heavy. But the yeast was in the fridge for 2 months, perhaps that is what mattered.

Based on the OP's findings I estimate 50% cell loss in 3 months (or about 17% per month). Anything over two months I make a small starter.

 

[skitter]

I started only storing 1 jar of each yeast type at a time, other than that I will just scoop out a portion of the cake and pitch the new batch onto the cake. Don't have the storage space for more than a couple at a time. I found the Wide Mouth Mason jars with the plastic re-usable lids work great.

I do have 1 jar of S-04 that I keep having to Gas, it's need in the fridge for a month now and I still have to de-gas... Really weird...

 

[tagz]

Kegged on day 17. Drinkable right away but sat in the fridge for another 20+ days while I was on trip.

There was hardly any pressure on cake, 5 gallon batch, not really that heavy. But the yeast was in the fridge for 2 months, perhaps that is what mattered.

Well something doesn't add up. On a standard batch you'd have about 50% viability, which is far from death and destruction. I just made a starter from a 2 month old jar and it took off no problem. Pitched it on a batch and it had a solid krausen in 12 hrs.

 

[rhys333]

Well something doesn't add up. On a standard batch you'd have about 50% viability, which is far from death and destruction. I just made a starter from a 2 month old jar and it took off no problem. Pitched it on a batch and it had a solid krausen in 12 hrs.

Out of curiosity, how much slurry do you use when doing a starter? I tend to use approximately half the estimated cells in old slurry and build up the other half of new cells with the starter.

 

[GQT]

Well something doesn't add up. On a standard batch you'd have about 50% viability, which is far from death and destruction. I just made a starter from a 2 month old jar and it took off no problem. Pitched it on a batch and it had a solid krausen in 12 hrs.

I do feel about the same. Perhaps I screwed smth up on the way. No contamination but might be some wrong temperatures or too high alcohol level (this particular brew went all the way down to 1003 resulting in pretty high ~8% abv, that was also one of the reason I wanted to keep the yeast. otherwise why would I store cheap and easily available US-05).
Anyway, I am now trying to see how it works on a pico-batch of 400 ml DME +1 pellet of old Cascade, and if it is OK I will slant it for future use in case I need dry and high-spirited beer.

 

[rhys333]

I do feel about the same. Perhaps I screwed smth up on the way. No contamination but might be some wrong temperatures or too high alcohol level (this particular brew went all the way down to 1003 resulting in pretty high ~8% abv, that was also one of the reason I wanted to keep the yeast. otherwise why would I store cheap and easily available US-05).
Anyway, I am now trying to see how it works on a pico-batch of 400 ml DME +1 pellet of old Cascade, and if it is OK I will slant it for future use in case I need dry and high-spirited beer.

I've heard of US05 getting 85% attenuation with a low mash temp, but it sounds like you just got 95%. Somethings got to be way off with that batch of yeast if you're sure of the gravity reading.