washing yeast

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Layla

Layla

Member
Joined
Jan 26, 2009
Messages
21
Reaction score
1
Location
Snow City
What I did was I poured off the suspended yeast, leaving the trub behind at least 6 times, does this look like there is anymore trub in it? I can take a better picture if need be.

100_1061.jpg
 
this came from a 3 gallon batch. how many 1 time uses can I get out of my washed yeast?
 
I guess what I meant to ask was how many gallons can I make out of the yeast I have in my jelly jar? If it came from a 3 gallon batch
 
Layla, make a starter out of that, and you could pitch into 10 gallons if you wanted to. Awesome job- absolutely awesome!
 
It may seem troublesome, but making a starter is preferable to using the washed yeast directly as it gets the yeast working again and proves it's viability. I agree with the above comments on your result. great job!
 
Thank you, thank you very much (takes a bow) lol Are you saying to make a starter out of the whole thing, pitch it to my beer? Sorry for the ignorance, I must be tired.
 
Coincidentally I just did this today myself with 2.5 gallons of amber. I wasn't nearly as diligent though. I only washed it twice myself. Its sitting in 3 - 1 quart jars settling out and will go into 3 or 4 - 1 pint jars eventually. Bernie_Brewer's sticky in this forum is great.

Layla go to www.mrmalty.com. It will give you pitch rates for your yeast. It has a calculator for slurry that you can set the date on that will calulate the viability of the volume of yeast yo have. I'd leave the slurry thickness at what ever the default is.

What I do to determine how much yeast I have is get a similar jar and measure how much water it takes to fill to same level. I have used the yeast straight out of the jar if I'm brewing within a few weeks.
 
Layla not sure what your asking. I go to mr. malty and see how much yeast I need. Then determine how much is in my jar by adding water to a different jar of the same size up the same septh my yeast has sedimented to. I dump that liquid into a large syringe I have that measures in millliliters I think it goes to 120ml. Its huge.

Does that answer your question? Or are you asking about viability dates or something like that. Sorry its late and my brain doesn't seem to be functioning the best. Unfortunately its insomnia and not beer related brain malfunction.
 
+1 to Mr. Malty, read the primer on making a yeast starter and play with the calculater and you should start getting a good idea of what you need.
 
I checked out Mr. Malty and it says I have to add 17ml (or 17 grams) of my washed yeast for 1 gallon. Now if I were to use a fresh pack of yeast it would weigh 11.5 grams. So I guess what I was asking was does washed yeast measure out to be the same as a fresh pack. And what I see at Mr. Malty is its just a tad higher...
 
bigjoe, when you measure it against a jar of water is that misleading? doesn't beer weigh more than water?
 
I'm shooting from the hip here, but here goes...I would assume that your washed yeast still has some trub in it and what Wyeast/White Labs offers is pure yeast so there is more yeast per unit of weight than washed yeast. So, Mr. Malty's numbers are believable to me and I would base my usage off of them.
 
Washing the yeast 6 times probably was a bit much. I do mine once or twice at the most. You probably lost some still viable yeast cells but what you have left looks like pure yeast!
 
i washed yeast like this for the first time today. it has been in the fridge for 10 hours now and my jar is about half full with sediment. all the pictures i have seen of washed yeast have only been a small layer on the bottom. why are my jars so full?
 
If you have a half full jar of yeast, good for you, you'll get lots of use out of it. Does it look nice and milky / tan in color? If not, you have trub in it still, and that could account for your jars being half full.
 
10 hours is not enough, it'll settle nice and tight after 5-7 days in the fridge. At least that's been my experience.

On another note, I've been washing and keeping yeast for all the liquid yeasts I've bought (only Wyeast American, WLP001 and WLP 570) and I just re-used the WLP001 for a SMaSH. When I was bottling my belgian, I realized that I didn't have any clean mason jar lids, so I bottled my yeast. I literally washed twice and then racked into sanitized beer bottles and capped as usual and then put in the fridge. It looks like it worked just fine. This might become a routine thing, it's super easy and all the eqpmnt is there from the bottling.

Anyone else do anything similar, or have any concerns about doing it this way?
 
bigjoe, when you measure it against a jar of water is that misleading? doesn't beer weigh more than water?
Click to expand...

Man I missed a lot posts and I'm a bit lost at this point. Layala, close enough to answer your question above. One of those tubes has 35ml. I put water in the tube and measured it with a large syringe and got 35ml.

As far as the half full jar of yeast is concerned I'm not sure what your getting. The most recent time I washed I used a gallon jug which was very nice with a 2 quart of water. The jug was about 3/4 full. Once the trub settles after 20 minutes, I decant to another gallon jug add a quart of water shake it up. Then let it settle for a fews... Is this the point your at with the jar? Or do you let it set for days to start with and pour off the old beer then wash? I usually get as much of the trub and crap off the eyast before I let it rest and package in the final container.
 
KCBrew said:
10 hours is not enough, it'll settle nice and tight after 5-7 days in the fridge. At least that's been my experience.

On another note, I've been washing and keeping yeast for all the liquid yeasts I've bought (only Wyeast American, WLP001 and WLP 570) and I just re-used the WLP001 for a SMaSH. When I was bottling my belgian, I realized that I didn't have any clean mason jar lids, so I bottled my yeast. I literally washed twice and then racked into sanitized beer bottles and capped as usual and then put in the fridge. It looks like it worked just fine. This might become a routine thing, it's super easy and all the eqpmnt is there from the bottling.

Anyone else do anything similar, or have any concerns about doing it this way?
Click to expand...



That is the way its done in "Joy of Homebrewing".
I've done both mason jars and bottles.
 
So your letting the yeast sit in beer for 5-7 days before washing? Or do you wash then let it sit? I'm good with the latter, but I think its best to get it washed right away. I have washed the yeast a few times then let it sit for a week or more before breaking it up into smaller quantities.
 
I was just saying that in my experience, after it is washed and bottled and put in the fridge, it won't compact down for 5-7 days depending on the yeast. If it looks really tight and the bottle is half full, then you just have a ton of yeast.
 
KC I understand. We were saying the same thing... just different.

I leave all the defaults set on Mr Malty no matter how compact I think the yeast is. JZ has gone over the use on multiple podcasts and he recommends just leaving the defaults.
 

Similar threads

B
Yeast Scientists: Why not create yeast collections before brewing?
Replies
2
Views
373
McMullan
McMullan
U
Washing Yeast vs Pitching Trub?
2 3
Replies
81
Views
4K
user 338926
U
Clint Yeastwood
Any Special Care for Yeast When Transferring Cloudy Wheat?
Replies
1
Views
323
lumpher
lumpher
H
Adding Philly Sour, to reduce oxidation in storage.
Replies
5
Views
213
DuncB
D
M
IPA With Conical Fermenter
Replies
2
Views
459
Broken Crow
Broken Crow

Latest posts

Back
Top