Yeast Wasing

[cj8scrambler]

I'm trying to start reusing my yeast where possible. In the past I have pitched a new batch directly onto the leftover yeast from a previous batch and it works fine for me. But this time I just finished fermenting a batch and I'm not ready to brew another one. So I thought I would try washing the yeast and saving it for a couple of weeks in the fridge. I've read other posts on it and I understand the general idea, but I'm just not clear on what part is the yeast and what isn't? I washed out the slurry with sterilized water, poured it into a clean jar and I seem to have ended up with 4 layers. I thought I was supposed to end up with 2 layers. Which one am I trying to keep? My guess is that the layers are:

1. Watery yeast
2. Yeast
3. ????
4. Break / hop material

 

[Beer Weevel]

I've washed yeast before with great success. looking at your picture this is what I belive:
1) Beer or water mixture
2) Trub or break material
3) Great looking yeast!!!!
4) Heavy trub
I would poor off the top two layers and save the third and toss the forth.
But is that great looking yeast or what, That's a BUTTTT load of yeast this batch must contain all of your trub out of your primary. Since I've been saving yeast strains I've got 6 different strains in a glycol mixture in the freezer that I can cultivate at will and I don't buy yeast anymore.

 

[Big Al]

Pretty cool. 2 questions.

1) How did you get it out of the primary? I use a glass carboy as my primary and it's a pain in the arse to get anything in or out of it.

2) How long can you keep the yeast in the freezer/fridge.

Since SWMBO is a molecular biologist, I'm thinking she probably won't mind a few yeast strains in the fridge as she conducts science experiments of her own from time to time!

 

[Kaiser]

2) How long can you keep the yeast in the freezer/fridge.

If I had such a SWMBO, I'd has her this question.

Generally you should not keep yeast in the fridge for more than 1 week if you plan to repitch w/o propagating again. After that time many of the yeast cells are dying and you will get poor fermentation performance. This is actually more important for lagers than ales b/c the required pitching rates are larger for lagers.

Kai

 

[Big Al]

If I had such a SWMBO, I'd has her this question.


Kai

Normally would have asked her but she's out of town for the week at a conference. SWMBO is not the most enthused about my hobby after cleaning up about 1 Gal of BarleyWine from my closet last week otherwise I would have Blackberried her!

Thanks for the answer, I suspected it was a short timeframe so I'll have to start mapping out my next few brews to take advantage.

 

[cj8scrambler]

Thanks for the help smogman. Would you believe that is only half of the yeast I recovered? I have a 2nd quart jar that looks the same.

When I finished racking the beer from my last batch I added about 2 cups of sterilized water to the bucket (although a carboy should work just as well). I swirled it around to break up the chunks at the bottom. Then I poured the slurry into 2 different quart jars. With your advice I poured off the top 2 layers from each jar and combined them into 1 jar. I'll let them seperate again and try to just keep the yeast next time.