Washed yeast...i think?

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sounddoc

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I've googled and had mixed results in what I should be seeing...and so I come to you guys and girls.

In the attached picture, I have what I was able to harvest from a 5 gallon SMaSH (MO and progress, yum) two nights ago Yeast was 2 packets of dry Muntons (age unknown, but boy did it work). They've been in the fridge for 30 some odd hours. The jar on the left is the initial pour where I think I decanted the wrong layer down the drain, leaving the bottom layer you currently see. I topped it up with boiled and cooled water, swirled, settled, and then decanted into the jar on the right which has the opaque thin white layer which I decanted from the first jar, and I think is what I want. The bottom patchy layer on the left looks like trub, but I didn't use much hops and barely any kettle trub made it into the fermenter, if any, and certainly not the amount in the left jar.

Edit: also, the jar on the left was ultimately topped up with more from the fermenter and let sat.

So...what would you pitch from these jars?

PXL_20201105_153646320.jpg
 
You cannot differentiate good yeast and bad yeast this way. The good yeast will be in between every layer. There is a sticky in this forum, where the details are explained, have a look there.
 
I had a look, but it's not all that helpful, I'm probably missing something obvious. I'm not looking for the difference between good and bad yeast, I'm wondering more if it's normal to have that much trub which isn't apparently hop matter. I.e., is that giant bottom layer on the left just garbage?

I'm brewing 2.5 gallons of gruit today. I'm going to bring this up to room temp, decant the liquid and pitch the rest from both jars. At the end of the day all this stuff will settle again after fermenting. Thanks!
 
For what it's worth, pitched everything but the liquid into 68 degree wort and it started bubbling away an hour later. As for taste, we'll see in a month.
 
For what it's worth, pitched everything but the liquid into 68 degree wort and it started bubbling away an hour later. As for taste, we'll see in a month.


being that i don't use finings, and boil my hops in bags, that's what i do. with simmilar quick take off results. and, yes, getting that much from a batch is normal.


as far as taste? i think it tastes fine? :mug:
 
being that i don't use finings, and boil my hops in bags, that's what i do. with simmilar quick take off results. and, yes, getting that much from a batch is normal.


as far as taste? i think it tastes fine? :mug:

That's inspiring, thanks!

1.5 hours after pitching and it's ferocious. My airlock has a bubbly star san pompador.
 
someone else would have to explain the subtleties, of flavors produced during yeast 'growth' to you. i've heard of it, but never really was worried enough about it to run out and buy a microscope and cell count plates, to try and figure the cell rate.
 
not too worried about taste with this one - i made a 2.5 gal gruit with leftover grains and mugwort for bittering. this is kind of the prototype brew for a couple things. It'll also be temperature controlled by a DIY brewpi setup, once I get that wired up (my main fermenter is using the regular equipment at the moment.)
 
well in that case, i'm sure you'll get a mug of beer from your mug of wort! ;) :mug:

edit: i would say that was a hell of a lot of yeast for 2.5 gallons though!
 
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