Yeast Harvest, which layers to keep?

[webtoe]

Ok, I know this has probably been gone over before, but I'm new and kinda slow. See attached photo. Which layer do I keep and which do I dump? Here's what I have: dump the brown, beer-colored liquid at the top; keep the very thin layer of milky white substance at the top of the solids. But what about the layers below that? Do I keep the speckly white and greenish-brown layer?

Input appreciated. Thanks!

View attachment 1499619218779.jpg

 

[flars]

Was this the entire contents of the carboy? How did you do your harvest?

The thin white layer of yeast is the least flocculant yeast cells that had remained in suspension. The debris layer you have at the bottom may contain about 1 billion yeast cells per milliliter.

I would swirl the flask to see if you can separate more of the flocculant cells from the trub. You can then decant one more time when you see a definite trub layer forming and the remaining beer in the flask is milky with yeast cells.

The first few posts in this thread may also help.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=579350

edit: Is that WY 1968?

 

[rhys333]

If that's trub from your fermentor, I would dump most of the beer, then swirl and save the rest in sanitized jars.

If you're repitching right away, use a portion of what you have, assuming 1B cells/ml (if it's fresh). A standard 1.050 5 gal batch would need about 200 ml of slurry.