yeast washing

[glorifiedbusdriver]

So I did my first yeast washing on June 6 using the directions on the sticky. It went great and yesterday I made a yeast starter for my brew tomorrow. I can't believe how fast this thing took off. I'm really surprised by the amount of krausen on top. It's Wyeast 1056 and normally only about 1/4 inch of krausen on my starters but there is a good two inches ontop of this one. Is that a sign that I have more yeast cells than I thought?

 

[Beerrific]

Nice isn't it? What you are looking at there is about $6 you saved!
If you saved the whole yeast cake for 13 days, it might not even be neccessary to make a starter. Not that it will hurt, just might save some time in the future.

Here is a little tool that you can play around with, it can be hard to judge where to set some of the options but will give you an idea on the range of the amount of yeast slurry to pitch:
http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html
(select the re-pitching from slurry option)

 

[homebrewer_99]

DING! DING! Sounds like we got another convert!!!

 

[The Blow Leprechaun]

I haven't done this yet, but I have sat down and mapped out all the beers I want to brew and organized them into "trees" so that I can wash and re-use yeast from previous batches to hopefully only buy yeast maybe 3-4 times a year (outside of specialty one-off beers!).

 

[homebrewer_99]

I haven't done this yet, but I have sat down and mapped out all the beers I want to brew and organized them into "trees" so that I can wash and re-use yeast from previous batches to hopefully only buy yeast maybe 3-4 times a year (outside of specialty one-off beers!).

Not even that many.

From every wash you can fill 5 vials. I've used up to 7th generation.

 

[cd2448]

i'm all over this too. i've only just moved up from dry yeast to smak paks (big improvement i thought, using weihenstephan yeast for a hefeweizen), and now i'm going all smak pak/vials and all washing and recylcing.

now if i could just break the bleach habbit, and finally put that turkey fryer to proper use...

 

[The Blow Leprechaun]

Not even that many.

From every wash you can fill 5 vials. I've used up to 7th generation.

What I've done is mapped out my brewing into "trees" where I want to use a particular yeast strain for a variety of beers, and the order to properly brew them in based on gravity, IBUs, and SRM. So really I plan on buying 3-4 different yeast strains and then using them all the time. I figure once a year I'll probably want to start over on each of them.

Of course, if I don't brew any Belgian styles in that year, I won't pick up that strain, but once I do, I know what to brew!

 

[ShortSnoutBrewing]

Not even that many.

From every wash you can fill 5 vials. I've used up to 7th generation.

Can the White labs vials be boiled instead of the mason jars? I've got a few laying around and it would be a lot easier to use the vials. Or do you just clean & sanitize them?

 

[aekdbbop]

never thought about reusing those vials.. smmmaaarrrttt

 

[Beerrific]

Can the White labs vials be boiled instead of the mason jars? I've got a few laying around and it would be a lot easier to use the vials. Or do you just clean & sanitize them?

I have a feeling they can. They are probably autoclaved before filling.

 

[The Blow Leprechaun]

Or you could send them back to White Labs for stuff!

 

[homebrewer_99]

Can the White labs vials be boiled instead of the mason jars? I've got a few laying around and it would be a lot easier to use the vials. Or do you just clean & sanitize them?

Yes. I reuse them all the time now that I have a shiitload of them.

 

[homebrewer_99]

Or you could send them back to White Labs for stuff!

I thought it was just the labels you sent back??

I have over 30 labels...

 

[HairyDogBrewing]

I tried pressure cooking WLP vials and they turned opaque gray.
And the cap seals shriveled up.
I'm going to go back to Star San and Everclear.

BTW Vegetable oil will remove the glue from the label.

 

[Shaggy]

Or you could send them back to White Labs for stuff!

"5000 vials: Chris White will come to your house, bring the yeast, and brew with you."

 

[homebrewer_99]

"5000 vials: Chris White will come to your house, bring the yeast, and brew with you."

For 5000 vials at $7 each...I bet you can get him to come to your house for the weekend cheaper than $35K.

 

[Beerrific]

For 5000 vials at $7 each...I bet you can get him to come to your house for the weekend cheaper than $35K.

Yeah, but you don't get 175 liters of yeast too.

 

[homebrewer_99]

Yeah, but you don't get 175 liters of yeast too.

Sure could...I use a radiator fan in my stirplate!!!

 

[Shaggy]

LOL!