I bottled a 5 gal extract batch of West Coast IPA yesterday and thought I'd recover the yeast for a new batch I plan to brew this week. The first batch was fermented 2 weeks at 68F, dry hopped for 1 week, then cold crashed for a week, all in the primary fermenter.
The yeast/trub cake in the fermenter was pretty firm and really didn't look that bad given the dry-hop, and maybe I could have just saved it as it was and pitched it within the next couple of days. But ... I figured I'd try washing it.
I boiled about a quart of water, let it cool, added it to the trub cake in the fermenter and swirled it. I then poured of most of it into a 48oz bottle and let it settle a bit. I expected to see a fairly well-defined bottom layer, a milky middle layer, and a thin top layer. After 20 min, there was not much layering at all. After an hour or more, there was faint separation but the bottom layer seemed to take up about 80% of the volume. Another half hour later, not much had changed so I poured off the top stuff into two pint jars, filling them about 3/4 full.
I let those stand for a bit, expecting to see a bit more settling and separation. Since a fair amount of the bottom layer from the first jar made it into these two, I expected to see 3 layers again instead of the ideal two, and I did. This time, however, the bottom layer was a bit more defined. So, I poured of the top two layers back into the larger jar, added a pint of sterile wort, and shook it vigorously. That was around 4pm. At around 8pm and again around midnight I swirled the contents back into suspension (they had separated into 3 layers).
This morning, it looked like this - 4 layers and some foamy clusters on the surface. Any thoughts?
The yeast/trub cake in the fermenter was pretty firm and really didn't look that bad given the dry-hop, and maybe I could have just saved it as it was and pitched it within the next couple of days. But ... I figured I'd try washing it.
I boiled about a quart of water, let it cool, added it to the trub cake in the fermenter and swirled it. I then poured of most of it into a 48oz bottle and let it settle a bit. I expected to see a fairly well-defined bottom layer, a milky middle layer, and a thin top layer. After 20 min, there was not much layering at all. After an hour or more, there was faint separation but the bottom layer seemed to take up about 80% of the volume. Another half hour later, not much had changed so I poured off the top stuff into two pint jars, filling them about 3/4 full.
I let those stand for a bit, expecting to see a bit more settling and separation. Since a fair amount of the bottom layer from the first jar made it into these two, I expected to see 3 layers again instead of the ideal two, and I did. This time, however, the bottom layer was a bit more defined. So, I poured of the top two layers back into the larger jar, added a pint of sterile wort, and shook it vigorously. That was around 4pm. At around 8pm and again around midnight I swirled the contents back into suspension (they had separated into 3 layers).
This morning, it looked like this - 4 layers and some foamy clusters on the surface. Any thoughts?