Splitting yeast.

[barry44]

Hi all, I've split a vial of wlp001 using the method that Hordern hillbilly outlines on his website where I've fermented out 4 litres of wort made up with 500g of extract.

I've used an ashbeck 5litre water bottle to ferment out the Yeast and i intend to mix it up tomorrow and pour it from the ashbeck bottle into plastic bottles but I'm concerned about how sanitary this will be as there is a lot of krausen in the bottle.

Therefore, I have two options, these are as follows:

1 - wipe the lip of the bottle with isopropyl alcohol and pour directly from the ashbeck bottle into the smaller bottles via a sanitised funnel, or

2 - syphon the entire lot into a clean bottle and pour from there.

I am concerned that both methods may risk infection to the Yeast although I will ensure that I take all steps to ensure my gear is clean.

What's your thoughts? Which method would you all suggest?

Cheers,

Barry

[barry44]

I've just read another thread with pretty much my question answered by Jocky, suggesting the lip should be wiped which is what I'll do tomorrow.

Cheers all.

[Jocky]

Wiping the lip is to stop anything that's landed on the lip (eg dust mote carrying lactobacillus) from ending up in your stored yeast. You might end up introducing it via your funnel anyway, so do whatever you can to make that as close to sterile as possible.

Personally if I was intending on keeping yeast going over a 6-9 month brewing season I'd just harvest a load of slurry from batch #1 into sterilised containers and then use each batch a couple of times before refreshing.

[barry44]

I've been doing that Jocky but I thought I'd give it a go 'up front' and see how I get on.

I did a brew today and made a Shaken starter with one of the bottles from the split wlp001 yesterday and signs are looking good. I may harvest the Yeast from this brew as well....