Yeast harvesting

[ehk089]

I have harvested/washed yeast before, but this is my first time harvesting just cake/slurry from the bottom of a bucket and I had a question. Instead of pouring the yeast out into jars, I used my hand to dip the mason jar into it to fill. Hands and jar were clean, and dipped in stars an prior, but I’m wondering if a couple fingers touching a tiny bit of yeast will cause a problem/contamination...again, hands were clean and dipped in sanitizer...what do you guys think?

 

[IslandLizard]

Relax, it's probably just fine.

But I think it's better to leave some beer (1-2 quarts) in the bottom when racking, swirl that up into a pourable slurry,* and pour into mason jars. I use a half gallon glass pickle jar. Than divide into smaller ones.

Avoiding contact with yeast and minimizing chance of bacteria dropping into your yeast is always advised.
Your hands may have been sanitized (if that's even possible with Starsan), but your arm and shirt sleeve may contain bugs.

* That yeast cake can be very compacted, so good swirling is needed to bring it back into suspension. Take a look when swirling, you'll see gooey yeast sticking to the bottom. That's good yeast we want and need as well as the looser, less flocculant ones on top. They all help to ferment your beer.

Just keep things as sanitary as you possibly can. I always turn the air off when handling yeast. Or racking, unless it's a closed system.

 

[flars]

Contaminants can come from almost anywhere. Watch a cooking show where the chef has long fingernails. Does the perfunctory quick rinse in soapy water for safety but doesn't scrub under the nails. (I find it humorous they don't bother to rinse the soap off their hands before going back to food handling. Maybe that's just a brewing thing.)

 

[kh54s10]

I would pour the yeast into sanitized jars, do my best to minimize contact with any tools etc.

But, yeast are pretty hardy. I doubt that you will have a problem.

I bag hops, so dipping wouldn't be something I could do anyway, at maximum I get about 1/2 inch layer of trub/yeast on the bottom of my fermenters, usually less.

 

[IslandLizard]

Wasn't it John Palmer who wrote to "scoop a cup of yeast" out of the bucket for the next batch? If so, that was way back, around the turn of the millenium.

 

[ehk089]

Yeah I figured it was ok, but I’ve never tried this method, previously I did the whole washing process....not sure why pouting didn’t occur to me until after I had done it. The only other thought was tongs, but next time I’ll pour.

 

[homebrewer_99]

For my last brew I used a sanitized measuring cup of swirled yeast from a primary. That brew is ready to keg.

 

[burntchef]

So I just harvested my first yeast. After racking the beer off, I whisked the trub until uniform and racked into mason jars. Jumping ahead, how do you know how much harvested yeast to pitch? If the recipe calls for 2 oz of a given yeast, how does that equate to jar volume?
Eric

 

[SEndorf]

So I just harvested my first yeast. After racking the beer off, I whisked the trub until uniform and racked into mason jars. Jumping ahead, how do you know how much harvested yeast to pitch? If the recipe calls for 2 oz of a given yeast, how does that equate to jar volume?
Eric

For your recipe, compute the required cell count rather than ounces.
A sloppy estimate of harvested slurry is 35-40 billion cells per ounce.
This guideline has worked well for me.
Be concerned with under pitching, not over pitching, unless you put an insane amount of yeast in a small batch.

I just pitched the third round of harvested WLP001 in a 1.088 beer.
It was gassing off in 3 hours like the fat man in a Mexican restaurant.....

 

[IslandLizard]

What @SEndorf says. ^

For used slurry, poured from a fermentor, 1-1.5 billion cells per ml is indeed a good guide. If the yeast is very clean (very little trub) it could be as high as 3-4 billion/ml. This also depends on how much liquid is included.

Mr. Malty has a good cell count estimator on the "repitch from slurry" tab. You can repitch that slurry as is, but for slurries that have been in the fridge for some time, say over a month, viability has dropped off (cells die over time), so a larger amount or a starter may be needed.

Use a yeast calculator like Homebrew Dad's, Yeast Calc, or Mr. Malty to calculate how many cells you need to pitch and how large of starter you would need to make to get there.

 

[IslandLizard]

[...] If the recipe calls for 2 oz of a given yeast, how does that equate to jar volume?

Recipes never call for yeast pitches in ounces, AFAIK.
They may give an indication of cell count needed as in cells/ml/°Plato, or, for example, 210 billion cells for a 5 gallon batch.

 

[burntchef]

My bad. I was trying to equate a recipe calling for two packages of wlp007 to a jar of slurry.
Thanx

 

[IslandLizard]

My bad. I was trying to equate a recipe calling for two packages of wlp007 to a jar of slurry.
Thanx

[Edits]
No, nothing bad about that. Recipes shouldn't call for 2 packs of yeast without at least mentioning to make a starter. Reason is, chances are the yeast you buy at an LHBS is not all that fresh (say, 2-4 months old), and yeast that was shipped may have suffered trauma (heat, frost) so when a larger pitch is necessary (as directed by using 2 packs) one would be much better off making an adequately sized yeast starter from ONE pack, so you know you'll have the cell amount needed. A half gallon or one gallon glass jug works fine for that. A stir plate even better. Besides, you mentioned in another thread that the yeast ran you $10 for a pack.

The best is overbuilding starters, so you ave some out for the next time you make a starter, etc. etc. One pack of yeast can be used 6-10x that way. Then there's harvested slurry too that can be repitched.

Lots of kit directions are missing critical information and directions especially on yeast, while most still insist on racking to secondary after xx days... Not needed or possibly detrimental for most brews.

 

[burntchef]

Thanx for the lesson. The recipe was from beer smith, most of my questions were from my lack of understanding the recipe. I checked on my jars just now and from the 8 quarts of slurry I got, I prolly will wind up with one quart of yeast slurry to separate further once I siphon off the trub from the top. I drilled the port in my fermenter to high. Oh well I still got 9 gallons of beer in two kegs.
Eric

 

[IslandLizard]

Thanx for the lesson. The recipe was from beer smith, most of my questions were from my lack of understanding the recipe. I checked on my jars just now and from the 8 quarts of slurry I got, I prolly will wind up with one quart of yeast slurry to separate further once I siphon off the trub from the top. I drilled the port in my fermenter to high. Oh well I still got 9 gallons of beer in two kegs.
Eric

8 quarts of yeast slurry and trub is a lot for a 10 gallon batch. You could tilt the fermentor toward the valve at the end of your transfer to get more beer out. I usually have no more than 64 oz of slurry left from a 5 gallon batch. Except when doing NEIPAs with 6-12 oz of dry hops. I developed a special filter for transferring those a bit more elegantly and little beer left behind.

I've never heard of anyone siphoning yeast. We just sanitize the mouths of the vessels and pour. Those 8 jars when settled will probably only have an inch (or 2) of trubby yeast in each. The yeast is very difficult to separate from the trub, it's all mixed together, except from a thin white or light tan layer on top. No problem, after pouring off most of the beer on top, swirl or stir it up and just pitch the trubby yeast, with an educated guess how many cells are in each inch.

Now those 8 jars will take up a lot of space in your fridge... maybe consolidate them or after decanting, pour the slurry into smaller jars, once they've have settled out.

In BS look at the number of cells to pitch, and make a starter from one pack, saving some out for your next one. Ignore how many packs it tells you to get, unless you have too much money.

With liquid yeast you should always make a starter. That way you build new cells, increase vitality, and guarantee the yeast is working. Overbuild to save some out for your next starter, etc. That way you can limit repitching from old, trubby slurries.

 

[burntchef]

Agree. Went out to the beer haus for a couple pops last night and consolidated the 8 jars down to 2. Since this was my first effort, I am learning as I go. I prolly wasted 1.5 gallons of viable beer. Next time I will find a way to save it. Bottling would be a good way to catch that. Now that I know what trub looks like compared to beer, tiltting the fermenter at the end would have gotten 10 gallons in the kegs, not 9. It is a process I will continue to refine.

When keg 1 kicks, I am going to brew a marres otter smash for my non porter friends to enjoy.
Eric

 

[burntchef]

So the plan was for a smash.... Then I found the EF thread. My ipa friends will have to brew there own. lol! Any way I pulled my jar of slurry at 8am and started brewing. I pitched a visibly happy room temp jar at 1pm. 1 hour later I had action in the airlock. MMmmm
Eric

 

[IslandLizard]

Edmund Fitzgerald is wonderful, enjoy!

 

[burntchef]

So I prolly overpitched, but I was concerned about my lazy approach to washing the yeast. Anyway, it took off like a rocket and now on day 3 it seems to have finished primary fermentation. Since I am endeavoring to get better my question is this.

1. where should you pull the sample from to check FG after 1 week?

I bought the chapman all stainless fermenter and love it. Drawbacks are you cannot see anything. Krausen rise and fall ect. My options are remove the airlock and pull a thief for the test, or open the valve on the bottom and pull for the test.

Thoughts?
Eric