Yeast Washing and Harvesting

[timtoos]

Hi all,

Yesterday I decided to wash and try to reclaim some Wyeast London Ale yeast I had used to do a AG stout.

This is the first time that I had done this but I had watched quite a few videos to understand the procedure.

Once I had racked the beer from the primary FV I added about 2L of cooled boiled water, gave the fv a swirl and left for say 5 - 10 mins.

I collected 2L of yeast/trub/beer/water mixture into sanitised pots and placed in the fridge for a few hours.

When I watched the videos there were clear layers of beer, yeast and trub. On the sample I got, the layers between the trub and yeast were non-existent. I'm pretty sure the yeast will be still the same light colour as usual (I had brewed a stout - could this throw colour issues?) so it won't look dark like trub.

After a few hours in the fridge this is one of the samples:

I had collected 4 of these jars so the next step was to decant the beer off and dump the top part to another jar to collect the yeast (if there is any!)

I did this and this morning I have this:

Now to me it looks like I have collected a load of trub. There seems to be no layers apart from the beer water mix.

What are your guys thoughts? Is this a load of beer and trub?

[Jocky]

There's loads of yeast in there, and no need to wash it. Just store in a fridge until you're ready to brew, at which point you create a starter.

Yeast is better stored under beer than water, it has made itself a hospitable antibacterial environment, so generally there's no need to mess with it by washing.

[timtoos]

Thanks Jocky,

I was looking for the trub and yeast later but it all looks like one to me.

That does make sense. No idea why the guys in the vids all wash but I like the less messing about method.

So make a yeast starter with it and I'm away??

Cheers

[Jocky]

Yep. Washing only seems to be useful for getting rid of hop debris to me.

In future just leave a little beer in your fermenter and then swirl a bunch of yeast into it and the pour that off.

When I have a regular strain on the go like WLP028 I'll sterilise a couple of jam jars in my pressure cooker and then keep some yeast from a batch. It just needs a starter to go and seems to keep for a couple of months in the fridge.

[BrannigansLove]

I build a starter that's bigger than it needs to be (typically 500ml over), and decant the excess into a sterilised jam jar. This stays good in the fridge until next time I want to use it, where I build another starter, again harvesting the excess for the fridge.

[Jocky]

By the way, if that's a glass bottle then make sure it's a venting cap or otherwise just leave it cracked to allow pressure to vent.

[windrider]

My first few attempts looked exactly the same. Like Jocky said you’ll have plenty of yeast, it’s just not separated. You probably didn’t shake it hard or long enough to get it to separate out.

I found it a faff collecting it from the fermentor and now just grow a larger starter and collect the yeast from this (edit: Just seen BrannigansLove comment on this)

[barneey]

On the sample I got, the layers between the trub and yeast were non-existent.

That is not uncommon, the internet is full of glorious pictures showing hop debris ,trub, yeast layers and god know what, I guess they must have had a lot of debris in the FV to begin with.

Using standard UK brewing practice, (boiler / filter / cooling either in or outside of boiler) = no distinct layers (only beer and yeast) if you try and wash the left overs, well not in my experiments & is confirmed by quite a few people that have tried. Washing yeast IMHO is a complete waste of time and if anything is liable to introduce infection that might not have been there is the wash wasn't carried out.

[IPA]

See my solution to this here.
viewtopic.php?f=12&t=74852
The only thing that I do differently now is that I use a large syringe to remove the wort from below the krausen.
It is dead simple and works every time plus when you taste it you will know if it has become contaminated. Something that has never happened to me in three years of using this method.

[timtoos]

Thanks all for your advice. Next harvest will be loads easier

[rpt]

I now just collect the trub and repitch without bothering to rinse. This process using water is not washing as that uses acid.