Yeast Harvesting Guide

[oblivious]

Hi all

I just put together a few pic of my method of yeast harvesting, this was done for my last brew a Saison with WLP550

After racking the beer to the keg pour the remaining liquid, trub and yeast into a sterilized contain. I find one around 2liter to be good and place in the fridge for a few hours.


The trub been heaver will settle out fast as it the liquid part we are interested in as this will have a greater concentration of viable yeast to trub.Pour this liquid off into a new sterilized container, this can be of a smaller than the first and palce in the fridge over night to a day.



As the liquid we place in the container is yeast rich we want the sediment in this container. Decant of the majority of the liquid and transfer the yeast to your storage vessel, I use sterilized 50ml tubes.



An finally decant off the majority of the liquid and pout the yeast in to your selected container. I find there is enough to in each of these tubes to pitch into a starter fro a month ore so. Over that it I would add two if the tube to a starter.

[oblivious]

the only thing i'd say is that some yeasts settle out as quickly or virtually as quickly as the trub so it's hard to differentiate when the trub has settled and the yeasty liquid is about to settle and ready to pour off.

Very true, but I have yeast to find this to be a problem unless you leave it to long in the fridge

[mysterio]

Cheers for the guide Oblivious, getting ready to repitch some British ale yeast next week.

Hop Back yeast is an example as a yeast that will settle as quickly as the trub

Or Fullers yeast which settles faster than the trub

[oblivious]

Also you could take some of the trub with the yeast, to keep some of the more flocculent yeast

But just keep in minds this is a Belgian strain and one or the more flocculent yeast, but they are generaly not that flocculent

[oblivious]

Or Fullers yeast which settles faster than the trub

With something like that I just took the yeast trub mix and and pitch more into the starter

[piet_v]

Hop Back yeast is an example as a yeast that will settle as quickly as the trub.

I found that Hop Back yeast, when adding some fermentables (apple juice) & airation (shaking) to the first container,
will within 15 min throw a huge head (filling a 2 L container). This head can be skimmed & transferred to second container
and is almost trub-free.

[delboy]

You could use the above tip with some pre-boiled and cooled wort (made from spraymalt), you'd get the best of both worlds then.

[softlad]

Thanks for the guide.

So for highly flocculant yeasts would I use the same method or would I save more of the trub ?

[oblivious]

Thanks for the guide.

So for highly flocculant yeasts would I use the same method or would I save more of the trub ?

I would give it a good but if its not separating satisfactorily, I would make a starter and split it

[Belto]

What are the advantages of saving the yeast from a previous brew apart from costs.

I currently use SO-4 at £0.99, find it ferments very well throws up a lot of trub and also has a solid settlement when bottling, great for pouring from the bottle.

Would a more expensive yeast have more Benefits?

It would be nice to know of the experience of users of different yeast and why they keep using it