Yeast dead? Harvested yeast slurry and put in fridge.

[Incongruent]

Last night I added 1-2 cup distilled water to the thick yeast cake after bottling and swirled it good to mix it up. I then transferred to a sanitized jar and put it in the fridge to separate the sludge from the yeast.

I forgot cold may harm yeast. So I took it out this morning. Do you think I'm okay to just repitch this yeast as is without starter 2 days after I harvested it?

20171207_082305

• Incongruent
• Dec 7, 2017

 

[LLBeanJ]

Fridge temps will cause the yeast cells to go dormant, but they will "wake up" again once they are warmed up. It'll be fine. The fridge is exactly where you want to store yeast long-term, assuming you're not slanting and freezing.

 

[xpops]

you could just pitch if it's only finished fermenting in the recent past. you'll want about 250ml from the harvest for a typical 5gal 1.050 beer. Let it warm up as you've caused the yeast to drop out and go dormant with the fridge temps.

LLBeanJ is correct - for longer term storage, the fridge is exactly where you want to store that harvested yeast. Anything over 4-5 weeks, i'd throw it in a small starter just to get the yeasties awake and eating again.

cheers,

 

[Metalhead_brewer]

As long as you don't freeze it everything will be fine.

 

[Incongruent]

I have a few jars of yeast in my basement that has been stored at 68 Fahrenheit they're probably about 4 months old now. do you think the temperature and age mean I should toss them or you think I could reuse them?

 

[LLBeanJ]

They might still be okay, but you will need to make a starter and do a smell & taste test of the resultant "beer." I guess it depends on how badly you want to reuse it and how much effort you are willing to expend.