Washing vs. continuing a starter

[fearwig]

I hear a relative lot about washing yeast for repeat use, and everyone seems to focus on the limits in terms of 'generations', etc. Why wouldn't you just split it off into a new starter before you brew, and before you expose the yeast to all the stress and potential contamination? As long as you fridge it and feed it and decant it to remove dead cells now and then, what's to stop your yeast starter from outlasting the 10 or 12 or whatever generations that supposedly limit washing techniques?

Apologies if this is elementary stuff, I didn't have any luck with a search. I just heard that even commercial brewers supposedly use washing, and that seems like a really unusual way to use yeast.

 

[user 144271]

Good idea

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/entries/yeast-harvesting-novel-approach.html

 

[fearwig]

That's more like it! It's interesting that the author stores the yeast under water, rather than feeding it the way you might a bread starter. Given the way most of my bread starters look after a couple of months' neglect I can see the advantage to putting them in food "stasis". It's good to know it can survive that, at least at fridge temps.

 

[jstebell]

All I do when I need a new strain is make a 5L starter let it ferment out decant most of the beer the add slurry to five mason jars. There you go I just quaddroued my yeast and there is well over 100 billion heathy yeast cells per jar. When I run down to my last jar just make another large starter. Never buy or wash yeast ever again. Simple as that.

 

[Gringo_Bandito]

All I do when I need a new strain is make a 5L starter let it ferment out decant most of the beer the add slurry to five mason jars. There you go I just quaddroued my yeast and there is well over 100 billion heathy yeast cells per jar. When I run down to my last jar just make another large starter. Never buy or wash yeast ever again. Simple as that.

I have been considering doing the same thing. Have you had any issues with that?

 

[jstebell]

I have been considering doing the same thing. Have you had any issues with that?

No not at all. There is a little bit more to it like adding nutrients and adding pure O2 to the starter and cold crashing it prior to decanting but that's all there really is to it. And if I know I won't be using the yeast within a couple months I decant the beer from the "cake" and top off with boiled water. Maybe I'm just unaware of it but I don't know why everyone doesn't do it. It's so simple and you never need to buy yeast again. Unless you need a new strain. And it's far better than washing yeast. I'm out of town now or else I would post pics of my process. I have a whole mini fridge full of my "free" yeast.

 

[Warthaug]

I hear a relative lot about washing yeast for repeat use, and everyone seems to focus on the limits in terms of 'generations', etc. Why wouldn't you just split it off into a new starter before you brew, and before you expose the yeast to all the stress and potential contamination?

This will work, and will give you more generations of successful beers. However, the yeast will accumulate mutations every batch, eventually leading to a strain without the desired characteristics.

The way to avoid that is to store the original yeast, and grow a new starter using a small amount of this for every batch (rather than starting the next batch off of the previous batches yeast). This way, every batch starts off with yeast as close to the original strain as possible.

The latter is the essence of yeast banking, which many of us do.

Bryan

 

[Gringo_Bandito]

No not at all. There is a little bit more to it like adding nutrients and adding pure O2 to the starter and cold crashing it prior to decanting but that's all there really is to it. And if I know I won't be using the yeast within a couple months I decant the beer from the "cake" and top off with boiled water. Maybe I'm just unaware of it but I don't know why everyone doesn't do it. It's so simple and you never need to buy yeast again. Unless you need a new strain. And it's far better than washing yeast. I'm out of town now or else I would post pics of my process. I have a whole mini fridge full of my "free" yeast.

That's good to hear. Last week I made an extra large starter for my California common and kept back a jar for future use. Now I just need to start farming some of the yeast I most commonly use.