Yeast Washing Illustrated
- Thread starter Bernie Brewer
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First, go to yeastcalc.com and see how many cells you need for your particular beer.
Then, go to this calculator I made up (you might have to copy it to your Google Docs to edit it).
You enter all the things in grey if you have them and you'll see how many yeast cells you have for your quantity of washed yeast/trub. So then you'd see if you have enough or if you have to make a starter. Hope that helps.
BTW, I'd love some feedback from anyone to make sure I'm on the right track with the calculator. I think I've captured everything.
Then, go to this calculator I made up (you might have to copy it to your Google Docs to edit it).
You enter all the things in grey if you have them and you'll see how many yeast cells you have for your quantity of washed yeast/trub. So then you'd see if you have enough or if you have to make a starter. Hope that helps.
BTW, I'd love some feedback from anyone to make sure I'm on the right track with the calculator. I think I've captured everything.
I pitched some yeast I washed on Sunday to a 1.060 brew last night. Yeast was Wyeast Cal Ale II.
This morning, there were no signs of fermentation. Since I'm a chicken, I pitched a packet of US05 to be safe.
I'm afraid the yeast was too cold when I pitched it. The jar only sat out of the fridge for less than an hour before I decanted the water and pitched.
This morning, there were no signs of fermentation. Since I'm a chicken, I pitched a packet of US05 to be safe.
I'm afraid the yeast was too cold when I pitched it. The jar only sat out of the fridge for less than an hour before I decanted the water and pitched.
Sounds like you didn't make a starter then?
tre9er
Well-Known Member
How much yeast was there? Even if it was cold, it would have eventually warmed up and went to work. It's WAY too soon to say that first yeast wasn't going to take off. I've had beers take 4 days to show signs, before.
![Craft A Brew - Safale BE-256 Yeast - Fermentis - Belgian Ale Dry Yeast - For Belgian & Strong Ales - Ingredients for Home Brewing - Beer Making Supplies - [3 Pack]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51bcKEwQmWL._SL500_.jpg)
There was a lot. 3 inches in a pint mason jar. I probably could have let it ride, but I took the chicken exit to avoid an infection and a wasted batch.
I did not make a starter because it had only been 4 days since I washed it.
I'm brewing again today, and plan to re-use some 3711 for a dark saison. I'll be kegging a lighter saison during the brew day, so I'll probably just dump on the cake. The new beer should be 20-30 points higher.
tre9er
Well-Known Member
OK, you probably had plenty of yeast, FWIW. Next time set the yeast in a bath of lukewarm water, gradually increasing the water bath temp. Be gradual, but it will be fine.
Make sure your doing a good job of oxygenating the wort too. That could account for some of that lag time as well.
3 inches of slurry is a ton of yeast. That is way over pitching, hopefully it turns out ok.
tre9er
Well-Known Member
At least it was in a pint jar. 3" in a pint jar is probably 250ml compared to 500ml in a quart jar (just measured).
tre9er said:
I did exactly this last week. Less than 1 hour in warm water with yeast only 8 days old and it took off in 9 hours.
And, just because you don't see vigorous activity doesn't mean it's not working.
Pic of the WLP 566 Belgian Saison II I washed Friday. Its a lot of yeast IMO (pint jars). I'll have to check out the calculator someone mentioned above to figure how much to pitch into my next saison. I may do the ginger (OG 1.060) or the rye (OG 1.056) out of the May/June BYO.
Yep that is a lot of yeast. I usually split mine into 3 jars. Each one of those in starter could probably do a 10 gallon batch
Each one of those in starter could probably do a 10 gallon batch
Ha ha, yeah I'm not equipped for that kind of volume!
I've switched to using empty White Lab vials to approximate the cell counts when making a starter, I eyeball the volume in my stored vials against what shipped in the original vial when I bought it.
With this batch of washed yeast I add 2 of my vials to a 2 liter starter and that's typically good for 5-6% alcohol beer.
With this batch of washed yeast I add 2 of my vials to a 2 liter starter and that's typically good for 5-6% alcohol beer.
tre9er
Well-Known Member
Viability decreases over time, but I know of brewers who've used 6mo. old yeast. I'd consider viability to be very low at that point, maybe 5-10%. Probably worth making a starter by then.
I've used 9 month old washed yeast but did take the time to do a starter that was stepped up to the appropriate size. At that point I might have been better off just buying a new pack but it was Pacman and I couldn't get my hands on anything fresh.
TangoHotel
Well-Known Member
Very helpful. I'm making my way through the thread. I was able to harvest some wheat yeast and Wlp001 earlier this month. Glad to see I can start saving some money in this hobby. It becomes expensive!
TangoHotel said:
Once you start washing yeast and bulk buying hops/grains you really start to see how much money you can save. It's nice spending $20 for ~5 gal of IPA.
TangoHotel
Well-Known Member
I have a crop of hops growing in the yard too. Hopefully I can get a good harvest out of them and cut the costs of buying some hops out. Bulk buys are definitely on the list of things to consider. :-D
TangoHotel said:
Growing them has been fun but I can't say I get enough to even put a dent in the amount I need for a year lol. Cool though to do a SMaSH and know those are your hops your tasting.
TangoHotel
Well-Known Member
I only brew about 50 gallons in a year. :-/ maybe I should ramp it up a little! This year I'm up to 25...
A SMaSH would be cool to see how their flavor turns out. Looks like I have some projects ahead of me!
I have Danstar Munich and Wlp001 to play with. Ohhh, What to brew what to brew...
I'm in the process of saving some yeast from a WY1214 cake, hopefully I haven't messed up.
On bottling day I boiled a pint of water before I started racking my beer for bottling. Boiled for 15 min then let it cool on a cold basement floor while I was racking and getting the rest of my bottling equipment around. Once I finished racking I made sure the boiled water was cool and it was.
I poured the water into the fermenter, swirled around and poured into (2) 1 quart jars. I ended up knocking over one of those jars. I let that rest while I bottled about 45 min to an hour after bottling and cleaning up. Ended up going out to dinner so the jar sat for a few more hours. Now it's been sitting for 2 days, had to get some other stuff done and forgot about this little guy
At this point about 1/3 of the jar is dark liquid, very much like the Dubbel that I made, and about 2/3 of what looks like trub, no real "white/beige" layer. Should I just dump it at this point or can I still give it a shake to attempt to get the "heavier" trub to settle to the bottom then decant into smaller mason jars?
On bottling day I boiled a pint of water before I started racking my beer for bottling. Boiled for 15 min then let it cool on a cold basement floor while I was racking and getting the rest of my bottling equipment around. Once I finished racking I made sure the boiled water was cool and it was.
I poured the water into the fermenter, swirled around and poured into (2) 1 quart jars. I ended up knocking over one of those jars. I let that rest while I bottled about 45 min to an hour after bottling and cleaning up. Ended up going out to dinner so the jar sat for a few more hours. Now it's been sitting for 2 days, had to get some other stuff done and forgot about this little guy
At this point about 1/3 of the jar is dark liquid, very much like the Dubbel that I made, and about 2/3 of what looks like trub, no real "white/beige" layer. Should I just dump it at this point or can I still give it a shake to attempt to get the "heavier" trub to settle to the bottom then decant into smaller mason jars?
I would think you'd be able to save it. But I would swirl it again to get everything in suspension and then wait the ~20 mins for some of it to settle and then decant the top layer and you should have some of the yeast in there. You can keep doing that swirl, settle, decant until you get as much as you need or you get bored. When you want to reuse it, I'd definitely make a starter to make sure your yeast is good.
I just washed some yeast from a porter I made on National Home Brew day. Our local brewery, Rivertown, gave us the yeast so if I like it, I may use it again. For some reason this stuff didn't want to settle very well, so I just let it sit in my erlenmeyer flask and every 30-40 mins, I'd pipet off the clearer layer at the top into my pint mason jar. I'd then swirl my flask and add more of the trub/water mix if I need to more to almost fill up the erlenmeyer. After several hours I had filled the pint jar and now I have a nice layer of yeast in the jar. I think that's what I'll do from now on to get less trub in there - pull from the top instead of trying to decant.
I just washed some yeast from a porter I made on National Home Brew day. Our local brewery, Rivertown, gave us the yeast so if I like it, I may use it again. For some reason this stuff didn't want to settle very well, so I just let it sit in my erlenmeyer flask and every 30-40 mins, I'd pipet off the clearer layer at the top into my pint mason jar. I'd then swirl my flask and add more of the trub/water mix if I need to more to almost fill up the erlenmeyer. After several hours I had filled the pint jar and now I have a nice layer of yeast in the jar. I think that's what I'll do from now on to get less trub in there - pull from the top instead of trying to decant.
Big_Belgian
Well-Known Member
Apologies if this has been asked / answered in this long thread, but I wonder why all the yeast washing articles, videos, etc. always use boiling in hot water as the preferred method of sanitizing. Is there any reason I can't use my Erlenmeyer flask and a few plastic jars (these: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000N48SCU/ref=biss_dp_t_asn), sanitized in star san?
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My understanding is boiling is sterilizing and star san is sanitizing. I heard on the Basic Brewing Podcast that you should be sterilizing when dealing with yeast. They talked about autoclaves and such. With that said, I don't boil my flasks that I use to rinse yeast because they are big and I feel like it's a waste of water and energy to boil them.
I do boil the small mason jars I put the yeast in and do use the boiled/cooled water when rinsing as it is supposedly de-oxygenated. My gut, my science background and some googling make me dubious that we are truly removing any/all the oxygen and even if we are, I bet that some/most/all the oxygen will get absorbed back into the water while it's cooling anyway.
I also star san the jars before putting the rinsed yeast in. I haven't had a bad rinse yet, but I've only done it a few times so far. Hope that helps.
I do boil the small mason jars I put the yeast in and do use the boiled/cooled water when rinsing as it is supposedly de-oxygenated. My gut, my science background and some googling make me dubious that we are truly removing any/all the oxygen and even if we are, I bet that some/most/all the oxygen will get absorbed back into the water while it's cooling anyway.
I also star san the jars before putting the rinsed yeast in. I haven't had a bad rinse yet, but I've only done it a few times so far. Hope that helps.
