Can anyone who has a conical that harvests yeast and dry hops let me how they do it ?
I'm thinking of dropping temp to 12 degrees to condition for a few days after a diacetyl rest of 22 then dry hop it, will the yeast settle enough at 12 degrees to get a viable amount for a re-pitch before I dry hop it ? (wlp001) I dont want to be washing yeast so hoping to get it clean.
Dry hopping and yeast collection from conical
- Kev888
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Re: Dry hopping and yeast collection from conical
You will normally find that most strains provide plenty of settled yeast, even nominally top fermenting ones, without chilling at all. You will get some initial rubbish/break/etc settle and I dump and discard this after about a day. Then you will gradually begin to get clean yeast settle, opinions differ on when to harvest this and of course different strains and fermentations vary too. Ideally you'd want to avoid collecting lots of cells that die/fall prematurely and also the stubbornly un-flocculant ones that fall unusually late, but certainly before any dry hopping.
There are a few strains (WLP001 isn't one IMO) that aren't so good for collecting slurry early on, these can usually be top-cropped instead. There is actually an argument for top cropping by preference where strains are conducive to this, but if the yeast permits either then both will work.
Acid washing yeast is really a different thing; it attempts to reduce infection by killing undesirable things that may be in the slurry whilst not killing too many desirable yeast. There are those who try to simply rinse yeast slurry just to remove foreign matter but that is of dubious benefit, if you get it wrong even detrimental, and is largely negated with a conical's ability to harvest selectively.
There are a few strains (WLP001 isn't one IMO) that aren't so good for collecting slurry early on, these can usually be top-cropped instead. There is actually an argument for top cropping by preference where strains are conducive to this, but if the yeast permits either then both will work.
Acid washing yeast is really a different thing; it attempts to reduce infection by killing undesirable things that may be in the slurry whilst not killing too many desirable yeast. There are those who try to simply rinse yeast slurry just to remove foreign matter but that is of dubious benefit, if you get it wrong even detrimental, and is largely negated with a conical's ability to harvest selectively.
Kev
Re: Dry hopping and yeast collection from conical
Awesome cheers, I dropped 600ml of slurry today (48 hours) and it was dark slurry break. Even if I dont end up harvesting yeast its great to be able to drop the rubbish out my beer.