Yeast Washing Illustrated

[lionroot]

Really helpful guide +1

 

[Sippin37]

What is this DAP you are referring to?

Thanks

Yeast nutrient

 

[Komocabo]

Yeast nutrient

Ah! Never heard it called DAP before. I use the Wyeast nutrient stuff. Thanks for clearing that up for me.

Cheers

 

[DeathBrewer]

Diammonium Phosphate. It's a component in many yeast nutrients. Generally used by itself for wines or fruits that are low in nitrogen, such as meads and wine grapes with a low YAN level.

 

[TrustyOlJohnson]

Yes, sorry I didnt reply quicker. DAP is yeast nutrient.

 

[Pumbapoindexter]

Hey yall just washed my first yeast last week. Now there is some bubbles on the top and some residue around the liquid level. Do you think it's still good? I don't want to ruin my barleywine I'm brewing on the 1st View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1419970157.730130.jpgView attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1419970168.089862.jpg

 

[sikkingj]

You are fine, the starter looks normal (as in not infected). I can't tell the amount of yeast you have (sediment at the bottom of the flask), but I believe you will be fine.

Depending on the size of the starter (1, 2 or 3+ L) you may want to cold crash it and decant most of the spent beer portion of your starter. I then throw my starters back on the stirplate to re-suspend the yeast before pitching.

Best of luck!

 

[copper2hopper]

So I didn't do this according to the OP but my steps were a result of because of time crunch. I needed the fermenter space today so I transferred of this pretty damn clean Wyeast 1968 yeast cake and emptied the sludgy cake into 2 different sanitized mason jars until I could get to them later to wash and re harvest. When I finally got to it tonight I emptied both into the below sanitized glass pitcher and washed with a good amount of distilled water.

View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1420336746.282573.jpg

What part of this picture am I looking to pour into jars to keep? It's been 20 minutes now

 

[copper2hopper]

It's a pretty solid three layers but that middle one is still settling down and turning into that bottom part. I fear there is a LOT of good yeast in there though based on how awesome this yeast cake was.

 

[TrustyOlJohnson]

Well, I washed a Kölsch yeast, Wyeast 2565, in late January 2014. I ended up with the expected 4 pint jars and used 1 for a batch of Kölsch in February. Last night, 11 months later, I decanted the liquid and poured the yeast slurry of the other 3 jars into a 2000 ml flask with a quart of 1.040 wort. Its on a stir plate. 24 hours later, I have 3/4 " of krausen and continous bubbler activity. I will either 1) cold crash, decant and pitch this starter, or 2) cold crash, decant, add 2 quarts of wort and run that starter, cold crash, decant, and pitch. Thoughts anyone?

 

[dordelli]

So I'm attempting my first yeast washing and here is how mine looks after settling for about 1/2 hr. Which part am I trying to capture, the level at roughly 2.7L to 3.1L?

 

[eelgerg]

I have a yeast cake from a batch that I racked yesterday. I immediately put the fermenter in the ferm chamber and kept it going at 5 deg C. I am boiling water right now and will wash the yeast tomorrow. Is that too long to leave a yeast cake? Or will it be OK because there is still some wort with it? (Drained wort to the yeast cake level so there's not much).

 

[eelgerg]

Ps it will be a total of about 48 hours refrigerated.........if that helps.

 

[eelgerg]

And, is the aim to try to generate about a litre of yeast slurry per 5 Gal batch yeast cake? Or four pint jars? I actually have a split 10 gal (5+5) batch where I used S-04 and Nottingham. I figured I'll have at least 60 more gallons (6 mot split 10 gal batches) of ale brewed this year, and I'd like to try this split yeast on each to learn more about the differences between these yeasts.

 

[mtnagel]

So I'm attempting my first yeast washing and here is how mine looks after settling for about 1/2 hr. Which part am I trying to capture, the level at roughly 2.7L to 3.1L?

It's kind of hard to tell from that picture, but that looks like pretty clean yeast slurry as it is.

When you initially start letting it settle, in a few minutes, you should see the heaviest stuff settle out and you don't want that stuff. But you want all the stuff above it. If you let it settle 30 mins and only take the top, almost clear part in your picture (2.7-3.1), then you will be leaving behind a ton of yeast and you will be self selecting only the least flocculant yeast, which isn't want you want. Hope that helps.

I have a yeast cake from a batch that I racked yesterday. I immediately put the fermenter in the ferm chamber and kept it going at 5 deg C. I am boiling water right now and will wash the yeast tomorrow. Is that too long to leave a yeast cake? Or will it be OK because there is still some wort with it? (Drained wort to the yeast cake level so there's not much).

Yes, that will be fine.

And, is the aim to try to generate about a litre of yeast slurry per 5 Gal batch yeast cake? Or four pint jars? I actually have a split 10 gal (5+5) batch where I used S-04 and Nottingham. I figured I'll have at least 60 more gallons (6 mot split 10 gal batches) of ale brewed this year, and I'd like to try this split yeast on each to learn more about the differences between these yeasts.

You end up with what you end up with. It depends on how efficient you are and how clean you want it to be.

 

[dordelli]

It's kind of hard to tell from that picture, but that looks like pretty clean yeast slurry as it is.

When you initially start letting it settle, in a few minutes, you should see the heaviest stuff settle out and you don't want that stuff. But you want all the stuff above it. If you let it settle 30 mins and only take the top, almost clear part in your picture (2.7-3.1), then you will be leaving behind a ton of yeast and you will be self selecting only the least flocculant yeast, which isn't want you want. Hope that helps.

Thanks for your help, after letting it settle about an hour and looking very closely at the bottom, I could see a little trub. Here is what I ended up collecting, first pour is the jar on the left and last on the right. I primarily do 10-15 gallon batches and I know starters are usually always recommended, but won't the jar on the far right have significantly more yeast cells by maybe 3x?

 

[mtnagel]

Yes, those look great and yes the one on the right looks to have a lot more yeast. I'd still do a starter unless you are planning on using it in a couple weeks.

 

[eelgerg]

Thanks mtnangel!

 

[bristela]

Thanks for your help, after letting it settle about an hour and looking very closely at the bottom, I could see a little trub. Here is what I ended up collecting, first pour is the jar on the left and last on the right. I primarily do 10-15 gallon batches and I know starters are usually always recommended, but won't the jar on the far right have significantly more yeast cells by maybe 3x?

Hiya

The jar on the right does have ~3x the material of others to the left. What you can't tell from just looking at it though is how many viable cells are in there.

In a microbiology lab you'd talk about CFUs (colony forming units). The only way to determine that is to plate them out and see though. If you are curious (and can't be bothered with plating yeast out for CFU calculations) you could set up two identical starter cultures with your different jars and see which is quicker getting to mid-log phase (in my kitchen this means kreusen at its highest point).

Hope this helps a bit.

 

[eelgerg]

If you have the full load of trub in the fermenter because there is no trub filter and because I didn't whirlpool, will it be harder to separate the yeast?
View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1422589788.115457.jpg

 

[mtnagel]

Nope, you'll be fine. The trub will settle faster than the yeast.

 

[Rock_Toy]

So I attempted to do this for the first time yesterday and think that I may have missed the mark. Trying to harvest a Trappist Yeast out of a Dark Trappist IPA.

Boiled the jars and then poured the warmish boiled water into the cake/trub in the plastic bucket after racking out the beer. Swirled for a few minutes and let it sit for maybe ten minutes. Then poured off into 4 jars. Let sit for an hour or so and then poured off the wort from 2 of the jars into a smaller jar.

Don't appear to have done this correctly. Check out the pics. The first is the carboy with the racked beer the next morning. Then 2 of the jars this morning with the trub/wort/yeast. And finally the smallish jar that I poured off the wort and refrigerated overnight. Looks to me like I am getting nothing but wort and trub. Thoughts?

And if I did not get the yeast, do you think I can still harvest it from the carboy after I transfer the beer to the bottling bucket?

 

[mtnagel]

You probably have yeast, but you don't have very much.

1 hour is probably too long to wait. Everything shouldn't settle before pouring off the small jars. If you wait too long, most of the yeast will settle to the bottom layer, which you are discarding. There were still be some yeast in suspension in the top layer after an hour, but it will be the least flocculant, which you don't only the least flocculant. You want a mix of the yeast. When you pour, you want the top layer to still be milky color, not clear. If it's clear, you have barely any yeast in there. Hope that helps.

 

[Rock_Toy]

You probably have yeast, but you don't have very much.

1 hour is probably too long to wait. Everything shouldn't settle before pouring off the small jars. If you wait too long, most of the yeast will settle to the bottom layer, which you are discarding. There were still be some yeast in suspension in the top layer after an hour, but it will be the least flocculant, which you don't only the least flocculant. You want a mix of the yeast. When you pour, you want the top layer to still be milky color, not clear. If it's clear, you have barely any yeast in there. Hope that helps.

It does. Do you think I would be best served by trying to harvest out of my secondary at this point? Just want to be able to harvest enough for one 5 gallon batch, when I'll try again

 

[Komocabo]

I have heard you should not harvest from secondary. Not sure if that is fact, but it has been said that the yeast in the primary is" better" than the yeast from primary

 

[eelgerg]

Just an update that washing my trubby wort did work after all. Large mason jar settled well after an hour, with yeast still in suspension, and then decanting into pint jars resulted in about 4 x 3/4 full jars of what looked like pretty good yeast solution.

Next question:

How do I tell how much yeast solution (density of yeast cells per ml?) I have in each jar? Ie how do I know how much to use to make a starter next time I wanna use these?

 

[bristela]

I have heard you should not harvest from secondary. Not sure if that is fact, but it has been said that the yeast in the primary is" better" than the yeast from primary

You can harvest from the secondary, I have done it certainly. However, the yeast were definitely not as "happy". When I subsequently used them for a starter culture for my next brew they took a lot longer to form kreusen.

Personally, I do two sedimentation steps. Each is ~20 minutes. I find this is about right for separating out the trub from the active yeast cells. I also think that an hour is too long, everything will have settled in that time which isn't really the point.

Hope this helps.

Cheers

 

[IslandLizard]

I have heard you should not harvest from secondary. Not sure if that is fact, but it has been said that the yeast in the primary is" better" than the yeast from primary

You're right, the main reason is that in the secondary you're selecting for the yeast that is less flocculent. The more flocculent population lies on the bottom of the primary. You actually want both.

 

[BrewHogDeluxe]

I used this process for my first yeast wash 3 weeks ago out of an October Fest that I had brewed, washing S-04. Last night I brewed a pretty heavy IPA with 17.5 pounds of grains and of course a bunch of hops :-D woke up this morning and the wort is boiling as to be expected by any store bought yeast. I did do a starter and added a bubbler overnight. Great post, thank you.

 

[beardown2489]

Maybe I should have posted my question here. But anyway,

Here's the link

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=515262