Yeast Washing Illustrated

[TANSTAAFB]

I was hoping immediately.

My original intent was to brew the next batch and at the same time, have everything ready to bottle. When the batch went out to chill with the chiller outside, I was going to rack and bottle, then pitch onto the cake as soon as it was chilled and aerated. The LHBS guy said I could pick right onto the cake, but everything I'm reading here says that's overpitching and while it may work, I'd more than likely get better beer by pitching a portion of the slurry.

I looked at Mr. Malty yesterday and got this information:


I started a thread about the slurry, but wasn't getting much action on it, so I'm trying other resources to get a solid answer
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/pitching-slurry-229871/

If the non-yeast % is at 25%, I get numbers ranging from 64, 83, and 127 ml of slurry based on 2, 3, and 4 billion cells per milliliter of slurry. I have no idea how concentrated the yeast are or the non-yeast % and those numbers are about double each other from one end to the other.



I didn't want to save any of it. If I'm going to have to go through the process of washing it, I might as well save some for the next Belgian I do, but at this point, I just want to get the next batch going.



I called my folks and they have pint and quart-sized mason jars and lids and mom is boiling some for me now.



This is the first time I'm brewing a style similar or using the same yeast as a batch I've previously brewed. I just got started in late October. I haven't even tasted the first Belgian I brewed yet. This is going to be a different malt, hop, and spice profile, but still uses WLP400.

Can I wash enough yeast today, cold crash it for 18 hours or so, let it warm up tomorrow morning, decant the liquid, and pitch without using a starter?

The info I gave was to use immediately, washing was just a suggestion. If it seems like too much trouble, skip it! I like the savings from washing and find it an easy process.

You don't need a starter to use slurry. The assumption of 25% trub that Mr. Malty defaults too is the best guesstimate and probably pretty accurate. Just leave the defaults, put in your batch size and OG #'s, and maybe bump the ml by 20-25% just to be safe. You can skip the whole tupperware container part and just put the slurry in a sanitized pyrex measuring cup (or mason jar) and cover with sanitized foil. Leave out at room temp, don'y refrigerate. Pitch directly to wort when ready.

 

[jtkratzer]

Just picked up 2 1 quart jars and 4 1 pint jars with lids and rings. I'm going to wash some yeast for storage and "rinse" some for pitching today or tomorrow.

 

[jtkratzer]

The info I gave was to use immediately, washing was just a suggestion. If it seems like too much trouble, skip it! I like the savings from washing and find it an easy process.

You don't need a starter to use slurry. The assumption of 25% trub that Mr. Malty defaults too is the best guesstimate and probably pretty accurate. Just leave the defaults, put in your batch size and OG #'s, and maybe bump the ml by 20-25% just to be safe. You can skip the whole tupperware container part and just put the slurry in a sanitized pyrex measuring cup (or mason jar) and cover with sanitized foil. Leave out at room temp, don'y refrigerate. Pitch directly to wort when ready.

I'm all for saving the money and washing yeast, I'm just trying to figure out how to adapt a process that is meant for storing yeast to immediate use (within 24 hours).

I'm not going to use the entire cake, so I'm planning on washing the rest of it and storing in the fridge. I would love to be able to wash a sufficient concentration of yeast to cold crash it, decant most of the liquid, and then pour the slurry over into a 5 or 6oz baby food jar to take up less space in the fridge.

About using yeast immediately, I read that the Mr. Malty calculator is for washed yeast.

On the information page, it says this:

Yeast Concentration billion/ml
This setting allows you to adjust for how thick a slurry you're measuring. If you've ever seen the yeast packed hard into the bottom of a White Labs vial, that is Thick Yeast at 4.5 billion cells per ml. When you harvest a yeast slurry and it has settled for a few hours, that is a thin slurry. Usually, most homebrewers will let their yeast settle for a few days in the fridge between one batch and the next. When you do, you'll notice the yeast has settled a bit and is sort of jelly-like. That is the default setting on the calculator.

So, based on that description, would having the yeast cake/trub harvested from the primary (and it's been there since Jan 30th) probably safe to use the 25% non-yeast rather than 15% default?

Using ale yeast, 1.055 OG, 5 gallons, and a 3/5/2011 harvest date, 2.4 billion/ml (default), and bumping the non-yeast setting to the max of 25%, I got 102 ml of slurry.

So, here's my plan. Rack the beer off to bottle it, pour 125 ml of the slurry from the cake into a sanitized jar (bumped that number since it's not washed yeast) from the carboy, cover it, leave it at room temp, and pitch it tomorrow at some point when I brew and then wash the rest as described in this thread. Sound like a decent plan?

 

[jtkratzer]

Just measured a large baby food jar...150 ml. Those should work well once the yeast have been washed from either the quart or pint mason jars, right?

Once they're boiled, filled with the boiled water, and sealed, is there any reason to have to sanitize once I'm ready to put yeast slurry in them?

 

[slurring_troobadour]

Ironic that you're asking about this, took the day off work yesterday and brewed up a batch, while brewing yesterday I also transferred some previously brewed beer(about 10 days prior) from a primary to a secondary. Prior to transferring I boiled about 4 quarts of water and let it cool.
Then I did the transfer from the primary to the secondary and used the cool water to pour in the bottom of the primary and gave it a good swirl. Then I let it sit for about 10-15 mins and then slowly poured off most of the liquid into 4 quart sized mason jars that I had previously boiled and sterlized as well(I used a sanitized funnel). Let those sit (through the mash and boil and chilling), probably about 3 hours. When the wort was ready for pitching, I slowly decanted off all the water to about 1/2 inch about the slurry, then pitched that contents into the wort. Did this with the other 3 quart jars as well. Pitched at about 4:30 PM yesterday and it almost 3 today and the fermentation is active. Just a couple of points. If I re-use yeast slurry, I only ever use the yeast from the primary fermenter. I'm sure baby food jars work great for storage, I use pint sized mason jars and always buy new lids. I've heard of guys just pouring wort right into a primary that they just empty. I've never done that, other than maybe getting some of the attributes of the first beer into the second, I can't see anything wrong with it. If I did it though, I would make sure that I had added yeast nutrients to the batch. I've heard it works.

 

[jtkratzer]

Ironic that you're asking about this, took the day off work yesterday and brewed up a batch, while brewing yesterday I also transferred some previously brewed beer(about 10 days prior) from a primary to a secondary. Prior to transferring I boiled about 4 quarts of water and let it cool.
Then I did the transfer from the primary to the secondary and used the cool water to pour in the bottom of the primary and gave it a good swirl. Then I let it sit for about 10-15 mins and then slowly poured off most of the liquid into 4 quart sized mason jars that I had previously boiled and sterlized as well(I used a sanitized funnel). Let those sit (through the mash and boil and chilling), probably about 3 hours. When the wort was ready for pitching, I slowly decanted off all the water to about 1/2 inch about the slurry, then pitched that contents into the wort. Did this with the other 3 quart jars as well. Pitched at about 4:30 PM yesterday and it almost 3 today and the fermentation is active. Just a couple of points. If I re-use yeast slurry, I only ever use the yeast from the primary fermenter. I'm sure baby food jars work great for storage, I use pint sized mason jars and always buy new lids. I've heard of guys just pouring wort right into a primary that they just empty. I've never done that, other than maybe getting some of the attributes of the first beer into the second, I can't see anything wrong with it. If I did it though, I would make sure that I had added yeast nutrients to the batch. I've heard it works.

My only concern with that method is not using a starter. The "slurry" at the bottom of the jar is the trub/etc you don't want that's settling out while the yeast remain in suspension, right? They drop out once you get down to a minimal amount of trub and then refrigerate. Or am I misunderstanding something in the process?

I was thinking I'd pour 125ml of the cake into a jar and pitch that or take that 125ml and do a hasty wash with some of the boiled water to remove a portion of the trub and then wash the remaining cake as shown on the first page.

 

[jtkratzer]

Well, I'm giving this a shot. The beer that was on the yeast is tasty, so I'm trusting the yeast is healthy and the beer wasn't infected.

For tomorrow's beer, I poured 150 ml of boiled water into the yeast cake and swirled it around then refilled that jar with slurry. Added the 2 quart jars and 3 pint jars to the carboy. For the 4th pint jar, I dumped enough water so I could top it back off with the 150 ml of slurry from the baby food jar, sealed it, and gave it a swirl. Hopefully that's decent to pitch into tomorrow's batch.

I let the carboy sit on its side for 20 minutes and then poured off enough liquid to fill two 1 quart mason jars.

 

[maltoftheearth]

Three days ago I racked my lager to bottles. It was late on a work night and I was tired so I just boiled a couple of mason jars in water, let them cool, transferred entire remaining contents of primary into the mason jars (w/o adding boiled and cooled water), sealed them and stuck them in the refrigerator.

Today I boiled and sanitized three more mason jars and preserved the boiled water. The jars in the fridge containing the yeast, trub and wort have settled considerably.

1. Should I mix the sanitized water with the entire contents of these jars, then transfer to the mason jars sanitized today for storage?

2. When mixing the sanitized water with the contents of the jars should I attempt to capture only the wort and not the trub?

3. There is a bit of a crust to the jars currently in the fridge. Do I want to capture that as well?

BTW - this thread is awesome, I am having trouble keeping up will all the posts but it is a great resource. I would not have even tried washing yeast were it not for this thread.

 

[jtkratzer]

This is what I did:

For tomorrow's beer, I poured 150 ml of boiled water into the yeast cake and swirled it around then refilled that jar with slurry. Added the 2 quart jars and 3 pint jars to the carboy. For the 4th pint jar, I dumped enough water so I could top it back off with the 150 ml of slurry from the baby food jar, sealed it, and gave it a swirl. Hopefully that's decent to pitch into tomorrow's batch.

I let the carboy sit on its side for 20 minutes and then poured off enough liquid to fill two 1 quart mason jars.

I left everything sit and didn't get a chance to pour off the liquid from the quart jars into pint jars and they've sat there for about 18 hours. This is the result:

The jar on the left is the pint jar that had 150ml of slurry added to it after I poured off enough water to make room for the slurry. There is a distinct layer of unwanted crud below the yeast and I'm thinking about dumping it down the drain and just using the yeast from the quart jars.

The "cake" in the yeast jars are about 3/8". Using an entire cake from the quart jar should be good to pitch into 5 gallons of wort (estimated to be 1.055 by Beer Calculus) without making a starter, right?

Unless someone suggests doing something different, I was planning on giving the other jar a swirl to get everything back into suspension, giving it a few minutes to let any solids settle, and then pour the yeast/liquid into two pint jars and storing in the fridge.

 

[TANSTAAFB]

You could still "wash" the one with the trub by swirling it up and allowing the trub to settle with the yeast still in suspension and pour off the liquid with the yeast in it. Allow that to settle, decant, and pitch with one of the washed jars to make sure you have enough. The problem with no starter is you have no idea how viable the yeast are so I would pitch a little extra. I pitch the amount you have in a bottle into a starter then pitch to a brew so doubling the pitch amount would be about right.

 

[TANSTAAFB]

Three days ago I racked my lager to bottles. It was late on a work night and I was tired so I just boiled a couple of mason jars in water, let them cool, transferred entire remaining contents of primary into the mason jars (w/o adding boiled and cooled water), sealed them and stuck them in the refrigerator.

Today I boiled and sanitized three more mason jars and preserved the boiled water. The jars in the fridge containing the yeast, trub and wort have settled considerably.

1. Should I mix the sanitized water with the entire contents of these jars, then transfer to the mason jars sanitized today for storage?

2. When mixing the sanitized water with the contents of the jars should I attempt to capture only the wort and not the trub?

3. There is a bit of a crust to the jars currently in the fridge. Do I want to capture that as well?

BTW - this thread is awesome, I am having trouble keeping up will all the posts but it is a great resource. I would not have even tried washing yeast were it not for this thread.

What you have in the jars is settled trub and yeast, with a layer of trub below the layer of creamy white yeast. I would sanitize a large jar (or brew bucket if you don't have a large jar. Use star san or whatever you usually use to brew, you don't have to boil it), decant most of the beer off the top of the sediment, swirl up the remaining beer and sediment, pour it into the large jar and add your boiled and cooled water. Then start the process of 20 minute settling, decant, swirl up, pour into smaller jars.

Good luck

 

[jtkratzer]

You could still "wash" the one with the trub by swirling it up and allowing the trub to settle with the yeast still in suspension and pour off the liquid with the yeast in it. Allow that to settle, decant, and pitch with one of the washed jars to make sure you have enough. The problem with no starter is you have no idea how viable the yeast are so I would pitch a little extra. I pitch the amount you have in a bottle into a starter then pitch to a brew so doubling the pitch amount would be about right.

So the viability of the yeast is still in question even though they just came out of a batch of beer they successfully fermented, weren't refrigerated or stored for any length of time?

Would I be better off at this point to just make a starter with this yeast and brew later this week?

 

[TANSTAAFB]

So the viability of the yeast is still in question even though they just came out of a batch of beer they successfully fermented, weren't refrigerated or stored for any length of time?

Would I be better off at this point to just make a starter with this yeast and brew later this week?

No, brew away. Most of the yeast will be viable, but not 100% so I recommended that you overpitch a little is all. I pitch straight slurry from the fermenter when I am brewing and bottling at the same time. I have never pitched washed yeast w/o making a starter though.

RDWHAHB bro, you are overthinkin this thing!!!

Your yeast are fine, your beer will be fine

 

[jtkratzer]

No, brew away. Most of the yeast will be viable, but not 100% so I recommended that you overpitch a little is all. I pitch straight slurry from the fermenter when I am brewing and bottling at the same time. I have never pitched washed yeast w/o making a starter though.

RDWHAHB bro, you are overthinkin this thing!!!

Your yeast are fine, your beer will be fine

Sounds good. I decided to hold off on brewing today and washed the rest of the yeast. I resuspended the cake in the quart jars and 20 minutes later, there wasn't hardly anything at all on the bottom, so it must have been mostly yeast in that cake. I split those into 4 pint jars. I resuspended the dirty slurry, let it sit for 20 minutes, and refilled the 150 ml baby food jar with the liquid.

I'll take some pictures in a couple days and post them.

 

[TANSTAAFB]

Sounds good. I decided to hold off on brewing today and washed the rest of the yeast. I resuspended the cake in the quart jars and 20 minutes later, there wasn't hardly anything at all on the bottom, so it must have been mostly yeast in that cake. I split those into 4 pint jars. I resuspended the dirty slurry, let it sit for 20 minutes, and refilled the 150 ml baby food jar with the liquid.

I'll take some pictures in a couple days and post them.

The only thing I see wrong is that 150 ml of "slurry" is the stuff right out of the fermenter, unwashed, no water added. If you add 150 ml of the washed mix, you will probably end up with about 10-20 ml of actual yeast. If making a starter, decant one of the quart jars and pitch into the starter. Unless you are filling the baby food jar up with the creamy white yeast cake on the bottom, you have very little yeast in there.

 

[jtkratzer]

The only thing I see wrong is that 150 ml of "slurry" is the stuff right out of the fermenter, unwashed, no water added. If you add 150 ml of the washed mix, you will probably end up with about 10-20 ml of actual yeast. If making a starter, decant one of the quart jars and pitch into the starter. Unless you are filling the baby food jar up with the creamy white yeast cake on the bottom, you have very little yeast in there.

I realized that when I got home this morning and saw how things settled. I just finished the washing process down to four pint jars and the baby food jar. I'll make a starter with one or two of them by decanting most of the liquid off and then giving it a swirl before pitching. I got everything done on my stir plate build but some gluing and positioning of the magnets.

 

[ultravista]

Let me throw a curve ball here ...

I have been saving Pacman yeast from various Rogue bottles, Shakespeare Stout, Chocolate Stout, Somer Orange Honey, Oregasmic Ale, Northwestern Ale, and Hazelnut Brown. Everything was sterlized with StarSan.

I've got a jar with a decent amount of yeast at the bottom, approximately 1/2 inch.

Does anyone foresee an issue with collecting yeast from multiple bottles like this? Assuming they are the same strain (which they are - Pacman), is there a downside to mixing different batches together like this?

What is the best way to bring this up and build the yeast? What is the rule of thumb for water and DME as a yeast builder?

 

[BOBTHEukBREWER]

Surely boiling at 100 deg C is not sufficient to completely sterilise equipment? Given that there will be some fermentables and yeast stored for a fair while before all is added to a brew? Would a chemical steriliser such as per-acetic acid be better. Or boil first then transfer to oven and heat to 220 degrees C ? When cooled to just below 100 deg C add water that has been boiled for at least an hour ? When cool enough wash yeast as in this stickie...

 

[Rick500]

Surely boiling at 100 deg C is not sufficient to completely sterilise equipment? Given that there will be some fermentables and yeast stored for a fair while before all is added to a brew? Would a chemical steriliser such as per-acetic acid be better. Or boil first then transfer to oven and heat to 220 degrees C ? When cooled to just below 100 deg C add water that has been boiled for at least an hour ? When cool enough wash yeast as in this stickie...

Boiling is good enough. I've done it that way many times and never had an issue.

 

[TANSTAAFB]

Surely boiling at 100 deg C is not sufficient to completely sterilise equipment? Given that there will be some fermentables and yeast stored for a fair while before all is added to a brew? Would a chemical steriliser such as per-acetic acid be better. Or boil first then transfer to oven and heat to 220 degrees C ? When cooled to just below 100 deg C add water that has been boiled for at least an hour ? When cool enough wash yeast as in this stickie...

If you are really concerned about it you can use a pressure cooker to completely sterilize the water. However, MANY folks including myself have been using the boiling technique for a long time with no ill effects. I have successfully propogated yeast washed w/ this method that was 4 or 5 months old and others have had success as far as 11-12 months out. Boiling does kill most organisms that would spoil beer and beer does not support pathogens. Some have even suggested that the best place to store yeast is under the moderate gravity beer they are propogated in!!!

Ask 10 brewers how something should be done you will get 20 answers....

 

[milldoggy]

Second the boiling method. I have done this for two years, never had a problem. I used yeast as old as 9 months.

 

[permo]

I am wondering if it might make for healthier yeast to put just a touch of yeast nutrient in the jars to help sustain the yeast over a long period of time? I know that white labs does something of this nature...

 

[TANSTAAFB]

I am wondering if it might make for healthier yeast to put just a touch of yeast nutrient in the jars to help sustain the yeast over a long period of time? I know that white labs does something of this nature...

You want them dormant, not eating anything. If you want to help them sustain the long haul you could pitch a starter with yeast nutrients, allow it to ferment, and then give it an extra 12-24 hours for them to build up their glycogen reserves. Then you can wash the starter, but I would not want to add anything to the washed yeast I don't think.

 

[jtkratzer]

I pitched my first round of washed yeast yesterday. It will be a few weeks until I taste the beer, but based on the visual signs, it looks like things went well and sanitation wasn't an issue.

I'm planning on having something on the schedule to brew using this yeast within a week of bottling until I get tired of it.

 

[ASantiago]

Has anyone tried harvesting/washing yeast from a Tap-A-Draft bottle?

I imagine it would be the same as harvesting from a regular glass bottle, but with more yeast to collect.

 

[fiat84]

Update have over one year old Wyeast 1028 washed yeast stored in my mini beer fridge capped clear beer bottles topped up with distilled water. Early on the first two months I would just pitch one or two bottles and 1028 took off in about 15 hours. This week started a new brew with two bottles(one year old with a small white yeast layer and with aging a larger darker yeast layer below had formed). Pitched into a 26L SG=1.039 beer that took about 60 hours to start up this morning with 2" foaming at 67F. There was no foaming or heat increase even after 48 hours last night although I did stir it up at 24 and 48 hours.

Being concerned about the lag and yeast viability yesterday morning I made up a quick starter with the last two washed 1028 bottles and about 1.5L of the wort. Shook it as often as possible and it had some foaming at 22 hours when I got up this morning. Interesting the bottom yeast layer in the starter at 12 hours became "whiter" in color as it settled like it was cleaning itself. Appeared to be growing as the now only white layer was larger than early on when there were two different color yeast layers at the bottom of the jar.

Notes in this thread that once the washed yeast turns to a darker peanut butter color it is expiring. These 1028 bottles had a mix with more of the darker yeast layer at one year but still had some white yeast layer above.

 

[camus]

Alright, got five of these out of a pale ale.

Number 5 isn't quite as full, but this is clean yeast:

 

[Chefencore]

So I got what I think I washed and what is left in the carboy. What is yeast, what is trub? This is a friends strain, and I'd like to keep it

 

[King of Cascade]

So I got what I think I washed and what is left in the carboy. What is yeast, what is trub? This is a friends strain, and I'd like to keep it

Make sure you use boiled and cooled water to wash with, also sanitize well.

I usually don't wash I just time my bottling/kegging day with my next brew and pitch the yeast right in. I feel there is less chance for infection.

Good luck with your yeast strain...what type is it?

 

[BigJerk]

subscribed, I always thought yeast washing would be hard, but this looks easy enough