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nickelmcgee

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I used a blow off tube and 1 gallon jar of star san solution to prevent my big beer 1.080 from blowing a lid. After the most active part of the fermentation I removed the jar and there was a ton of beautiful white yeast in the bottom. I put the lid on and stuck it in the frig. Would any of you attempt to wash, recover and reuse this yeast. Of course the gallon jug was opened to the atmosphere for almost a week and the yeast are in a star san solution.
 
Wow good question. Yeast being open to the environment scares some people, others swear by open fermentation. Some say stars an can kill yeast, but I haven't read much on it.

Can't wait to hear the response to this. Wonder if it's as effective as top cropping?
 
Pretty sure the SS has killed the yeast, or at least most of it. One of the main purposes of using sanitizer is to kill any wild yeast from getting into your brew.
 
agreed. Star sans is made to kill single celled organisms. The yeast is very likely dead.

If you want to mail me a sample of the yeast in a White Labs vial, I would be happy to do a cell count.
 
OK if star san kills yeast then why arent we worried that it will kill the yeast in our fermenter or bottles. Both of which I rinse with generous amounts of star san before I transfer. In this blow off tube case the magnitude of star san is much higher but so is the amount of yeast. Any thoughts? Maybe a vendor (star san) can weigh in on this?

Woodlandbrew - thanks for the offer I'm headed out of town and cant take you up on it this time but I do think it would be good information for the community. Looking at the bottom of the jug; there is a ton of beautiful yeast without a bit a trub.
 
If someone were to try this with water in the jug instead of starsan, would this be even remotely close to top cropping?
 
HBT is a great site don't get me wrong. But there is always so much of a mish-mash of conflicting information.
Just the other day, someone said SS didn't hurt yeast, and that as it broke down, yeast could feed off it.

OK if star san kills yeast then why arent we worried that it will kill the yeast in our fermenter or bottles

This is a good point. If it is true that SS does kill yeast, I would assume the wort dilutes it to the point that it is close to ph neutral.
 
nickelmcgee said:
I used a blow off tube and 1 gallon jar of star san solution to prevent my big beer 1.080 from blowing a lid. After the most active part of the fermentation I removed the jar and there was a ton of beautiful white yeast in the bottom. I put the lid on and stuck it in the frig. Would any of you attempt to wash, recover and reuse this yeast. Of course the gallon jug was opened to the atmosphere for almost a week and the yeast are in a star san solution.

I had this exact same thing happen to my last batch. The OG wasn't as high as yours only about 1.050, but I had a little over 5.5 gal in a 6.5 bucket. So only 1 gal of head space. Needless to say there was a ton of blow off into a jar of SS.

After about a week i saw that nice thick layer of yeast at the bottom of the jar. I just poured off the top liquid and it smelled exactly like the WL001 I used for the batch.

I was brewing again this week and took the yeast from the jar and some wort from my new batch to see if there were any active yeast. 12 hours on the stir plate and I had great results. Smells like fresh yeast to me. I'm planning on using what I collect from this starter in my next batch.

I'm also going to try and create a closed system where I can collect the blow off in a separate container free of SS.

Hope this helps.
 
...there was a ton of blow off into a jar of SS.

... 12 hours on the stir plate and I had great results. Smells like fresh yeast to me.
You may be onto something here. Yeast actually prefer a slightly acidic environment and can tolerate a fairly acidic environment for a period of time. Acid washing is a common technique in large breweries where acid is used to drop the pH to 2.0 in order to kill bacteria. Star Sans works (in part) by reducing the pH to less than 3.0

You may have discovered a way to acid wash yeast at the home brew level.

EDIT:
did a search here on HBT and found these threads that may be of interest:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f13/wash-your-yeast-star-san-84988/
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/star-san-acidity-yeast-collection-100185/

I'm also going to try and create a closed system where I can collect the blow off in a separate container free of SS.

This is known as top cropping. It works well for many brewers. One advantage to top cropping is that yeast grows very will in high oxygen environments. The amount of oxygen in the headspace of a carboy is higher than that in the beer so the yeast is much more viable that the yeast that has sunk to the bottom. One down side is that it selects less flocculent yeasts.
 
brubrew said:
I'm also going to try and create a closed system where I can collect the blow off in a separate container free of SS.

Hope this helps.

I wonder would it be too risky to run your blow off tube into a starter?
 
Antler said:
I wonder would it be too risky to run your blow off tube into a starter?

Possibly, but I would like to just wash the protein off the top cropped yeast and store it. Since I only brew about every other week. Then I would make a starter from what I have stored when I'm ready to brew.
 
l would like to just wash the protein off the top cropped yeast and store it.

In my experience water washing yeast does a poor job of separating yeast from protine.
http://woodlandbrew.blogspot.com/2012/12/yeast-washing-exposed.html

I would just store it all.
http://woodlandbrew.blogspot.com/2013/01/yeast-storage.html

Water washing puts 95% of the viable yeast down the drain and selects the low flocculators.
http://woodlandbrew.blogspot.com/2013/01/yeast-washing-revisited.html
 
Originally Posted by brubrew
....
I was brewing again this week and took the yeast from the jar and some wort from my new batch to see if there were any active yeast. 12 hours on the stir plate and I had great results. Smells like fresh yeast to me. I'm planning on using what I collect from this starter in my next batch.....

Let us know how it turns out
 
Why are you trying to catch blow off yeast in an open container that can support wild yeast if it can support domesticated yeast instead of just saving the flocc'd slurry after you rack your beer off the cake into bottling or secondary?

Or just ferment in a bucket and top crop?
 
ChillWill said:
Why are you trying to catch blow off yeast in an open container that can support wild yeast if it can support domesticated yeast instead of just saving the flocc'd slurry after you rack your beer off the cake into bottling or secondary?

Or just ferment in a bucket and top crop?

The open container won't support wild yeast. He is catching blow off yeast in a container of sanitizer. As long as the container has sanitizer in it the yeast are safe from bacteria or wild yeast.
 
...One down side is that it selects less flocculent yeasts.

Just wanted to point out that the same factors that make yeast flocculant also make them good top croppers (adhesion factors). Top cropping is the method by which British yeast strains were traditionally collected, which selected for the most flocculant cells, leading to the extremely flocculant "domesticated" strains we have today.

So, by top cropping, you're actually selecting for more flocculant cells.

(Authors note: I have no data for this and can't find my source. WoodlandBrew is the king of data; if there's data showing otherwise I will happily recant my drunk post).
 
Just wanted to point out that the same factors that make yeast flocculent also make them good top croppers (adhesion factors)....So, by top cropping, you're actually selecting for more flocculant cells.
Yes, strong adhesion plays an important role in top cropping yeast. You have a very good point.

My use of the term "flocculent" is probably not exactly right here. Most of the time flocculent is used to describe yeast that clumps together and falls to the bottom of the fermentor. (Which is what I was suggesting is not selected by top cropping) However in more specific terms flocculant is the ability to form flocs.

Wiki on floccs:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flocculation

Wyeast on selective mutation including a note about flocculation
http://www.wyeastlab.com/com-yeast-harvest.cfm
 
Antler said:
The open container won't support wild yeast. He is catching blow off yeast in a container of sanitizer. As long as the container has sanitizer in it the yeast are safe from bacteria or wild yeast.

If domestic yeast can live in it, wild yeast can. Acid washing is done to reduce bacterial loading, if wild yeast is in there, it's going no where.
 
ChillWill said:
If domestic yeast can live in it, wild yeast can. Acid washing is done to reduce bacterial loading, if wild yeast is in there, it's going no where.

Ok. So you'd use 1/2 gallon jug, rubber stopper with 2 holes, one for blow off tube in, the other an airlock. Good top crop infection free yeast.
 
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