Will this work? Active top cropping of yeast.

[triletter]

Doing 10 gal of Altbier using Imperial's Kaiser for fermentation. When I did the yeast build it formed an humongous krausen. I have had a couple of blow offs using my SS conical and thought what if I could harvest some of the blow off yeast instead of killing it in StarSan. So I put together an erlenmeyer flask with a carboy cap. The blow of tube drains the blown off yeast into some boiled water and a disc hepa filter allows CO2 out but no contaminated air in. What are the odds the yeast will survive in the sanitized water? Giving it a try to see what happens.

 

[JohnSand]

They should survive well in water. Let us know how it goes.

 

[flars]

I top cropped some WY 3068 with a sanitized blow off tube. Tube went into a gallon jar containing one liter of 1.040 wort. Had an active fermentation producing CO2 in the jar before the blow off tube was no longer needed.

 

[triletter]

The concept is doable. Got a good amount of yeast that was nice and creamy off-white that would have been great for another starter. However, the air filter got blow off stuff in it which created enough pressure to pop the carboy cap off of the erlenmeyer flask. Could not risk it being contaminated. The next go around will be replacing the filter with a small blow off tube. Wanted to do that in the first place, but didn't have the right size tubing to work. Didn't cost me anything except a little time and I know what will work in the future. That Dieter yeast by Imperial is a monster!

 

[Smellyglove]

I've done this a few years ago, but I didn't use anything in the receiver end. There will be some wort which goes into the flask too.