# Collecting Yeast



## abbottdk (23/5/11)

I have read several threads about washing yeast from the primary fermenter. I have just strated to ferment a pilsner and was wondering once fermentation becomes active could I take a 1 litre sample off the fermenter and allow it to ferment separate and then use it as the starter for the next batch. If this is OK how many times would you do this before renewing the yeast.

Doug


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## adryargument (23/5/11)

barrel21 said:


> I have read several threads about washing yeast from the primary fermenter. I have just strated to ferment a pilsner and was wondering once fermentation becomes active could I take a 1 litre sample off the fermenter and allow it to ferment separate and then use it as the starter for the next batch. If this is OK how many times would you do this before renewing the yeast.
> 
> Doug



Probably best to wait until it is finished, and once you have filled your bottles/kegs, harvest from the yeast cake on the bottom.
Let the beer do the work for you, otherwise you will spend way to much effort and time doing the same thing with a side-starter.


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## QldKev (23/5/11)

adryargument said:


> Probably best to wait until it is finished, and once you have filled your bottles/kegs, harvest from the yeast cake on the bottom.
> Let the beer do the work for you, otherwise you will spend way to much effort and time doing the same thing with a side-starter.





Exactly how I do it, just pour out about 2/3 of the yeast cake (into bottles if you want to keep it for later) and then throw the next cube of wort onto the remaining 1/3 yeasties so they can gobble up all that sugery goodness. 

Although I think there is a difference between the first use of the yeast and the second, I've brewed for up to 4months straight on one yeast cake and don't beleive the yeast changes that much. I assume the difference between the first use and second would probably come down to pitching rates. 

QldKev


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## Bribie G (23/5/11)

I'd agree with Kev there. Whilst yeast cake also contains a lot of cold break proteins, dead cells etc it does fire up very quickly. Apart from a few craft breweries and real old traditional breweries in the UK and Europe, nearly every brewery on the planet uses big cylindrical conical fermenters and, guess what, there's a dedicated spigot at the bottom for drawing off yeast "cake".


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## khendrickson (23/5/11)

I have never done it. "The Complete Joys of Homebrewing by Charlie Papazian" has a section on it. You can basically do a sort primary fermination in glass and then seal. I have seen it done with LDME. If they are keep in a cool dark place, the sealed cultures can last up to a year. 

I suspect that it is sorta like keeping a sour dough culture going but with sugar instead of flour. My brewing shed produces the best sour dough bread around.


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## CONNOR BREWARE (23/5/11)

barrel21 said:


> I have read several threads about washing yeast from the primary fermenter. I have just strated to ferment a pilsner and was wondering once fermentation becomes active could I take a 1 litre sample off the fermenter and allow it to ferment separate and then use it as the starter for the next batch. If this is OK how many times would you do this before renewing the yeast.
> 
> Doug



To Top Crop or Not to crop top...sorry bad pun

A good book is "yeast, the practical guide to beer fermentation" it even covers capturing wild yeast. Authors are Chris White and Jamil Zainasheff. I kid you not its a bloody good read.

To me it boils down to how much you want to keep that strain you have as close to the original in a HB environment. But without a pretty good home lab and washing techniques I can't see that happening with out changes to each generation.

I've only top cropped once in a recent 'emergency' when my second fermenter, a Carboy, wouldnt kick off. Its fraught with danger of introducing nasties to your fermenter. It worked though.

Pro-culture liquid yeast recommends 6-10 uses of the same yeast and I believe this is based on farming from the yeast cake. 

Got to run to work but basically is it worth it? Yes if you are into the cropping for the fun of it and you yeast is that awe inspiring, no if you are just looking to keep good yeast on hand and play it safe, in this case go with the previous advice of farming some of your cake and pitching a new brwe onto the remainder. it simple and effective.


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## proudscum (23/5/11)

Have just top cropped an Ale.BUT i have all the gear to culture so it was easy for me.
Last night canned some left over kettle runnings that i filtered then let it settle,diluted then reboiled.Then autoclaved in pressure cooker for 15min.Put 50ml of wort in preserving jar to put the top cropped yeast in till i transfer to a flask.100ml wort in 250 ml flask with foil on top and 700ml wort in a litre flask also foiled.

This morning sterised a 30ml ladle and funnel in pressure cooker san starred everything set up jar,flask etc.opened jar with lid resting on top,same for fermenter and pressure cooker.
Took deep breath scooped yeast from the middle of the foamy head and straight into jar with wort.Closed everything up and started to breath again.Re san starred after cleaning small spill
and transfered caught yeast and wort via funnel into waiting flask.Straight on to stir plate will give it 12 hours and step it up to the bigger flask if i think it is ready.

From what i have read you could also do this for SOME Lager/Pilsener strains if they produce a nice creamy Kraeusen on day 2 or 3.

Flame suit on as this is the first time top cropping,have tried to keep everything as aseptic as possible turned the heating off so less dust blowing around,autoclaved and flamed everything,san starred whole area including hands and forearms and tried not to touch or breath on anything that will come into contact will the yeast.


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## EMalmgren (25/5/11)

QldKev said:


> Exactly how I do it, just pour out about 2/3 of the yeast cake (into bottles if you want to keep it for later) and then throw the next cube of wort onto the remaining 1/3 yeasties so they can gobble up all that sugery goodness.
> 
> Although I think there is a difference between the first use of the yeast and the second, I've brewed for up to 4months straight on one yeast cake and don't beleive the yeast changes that much. I assume the difference between the first use and second would probably come down to pitching rates.
> 
> QldKev



Rogue re-uses their Pacman strain to the 5th generation. I found a short read from their brewmaster awhile ago, the basics being "We dont use it past the 5th generation because yeast cells do start to mutate after (X amount) of generations." My para-phrasing, of course.


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## Wolfy (25/5/11)

barrel21 said:


> I have read several threads about washing yeast from the primary fermenter. I have just strated to ferment a pilsner and was wondering once fermentation becomes active could I take a 1 litre sample off the fermenter and allow it to ferment separate and then use it as the starter for the next batch. If this is OK how many times would you do this before renewing the yeast.


Yes you could do that.

However, as others have suggested, you would be better harvesting the yeast directly. If the yeast dense on the top of your fermenting beer, you could top crop it, else you may be better to harvest it from the yeast-cake, after fermentation has finished.

Depending on your sanitation and procedures, you could re-use the yeast up to 8 times. But a number closer to 3-5 is probably more realistic for most home-brewers, the two biggest factors are yeast mutation and infection, with infection being the common concern when re-use yeast multiple times at home.


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## QldKev (25/5/11)

Funny thing is it's only ever on homebrew forums I read about mutations

http://www.whitelabs.com/beer/craft_yeast_storage.html
They say 5-10 time for a homebrewer, but not due to mutation.



QldKev


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## ekul (25/5/11)

I read in a book called 'the handbook of brewing' that breweries reuse their yeast 50-60 times. I don't know if its a good book, or if the information is correct. I do know that after reusing yeast a few times it starts to taste better, but not significantly so.

I used to bottle some a few stubbies from the first fermentation, then reuse the yeast cake 4 or so times. Then move onto the next bottle. Now i just reuse the yeast until i want to use something else. 

Recently i've found that liquid yeast is probably cheaper for me in the long run becuase i can split the pack four ways at the start, something i don't do with dried yeast.


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## Wolfy (25/5/11)

QldKev said:


> Funny thing is it's only ever on homebrew forums I read about mutations
> 
> http://www.whitelabs.com/beer/craft_yeast_storage.html
> They say 5-10 time for a homebrewer, but not due to mutation.


Most likely because other more technical sources often call them things like 'respiratory mutants' or 'petite mutants'.

Obviously most unique strains of beer have been developed via mutation and change over time, however, those changes are not always good, and there are various examples (even on these forums) where people have used yeast for a period of time, and it has shown changes characteristics - that have not always been good - after only a handful of re-pitches, while they many not have said 'mutations' that's essentially what it means.



ekul said:


> I read in a book called 'the handbook of brewing' that breweries reuse their yeast 50-60 times. I don't know if its a good book, or if the information is correct. I do know that after reusing yeast a few times it starts to taste better, but not significantly so.


Some breweries (especially those in the UK) have/had been reusing their yeast for 100's of years.
However, with changes in brewery practice and design (large metal conical fermentors replacing the more shallow and often open fermentors) putting more stress on the yeast, and changing the conditions it is used to, more yeast is grown in the lab and introduced into the brewery more frequently than in the past.


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## felten (25/5/11)

I think it was a few weeks ago that I heard anchor steam brewery talking about how they've reused their yeast for like 40 years, they occasionally acid wash it, but no new cultures.

You could keep reusing your yeast until you're unhappy with the end results in the beer, or until it gets infected if you wanted to. I limit mine to using the same yeast for 3 batches in a row, but that's because it gets too long between brews for me to store it in the fridge after that.


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## EMalmgren (26/5/11)

It seems to me like hairs are being split here.

We can all agree that some sort of "change" happens after using the same yeast for so long, yet people are really shy about calling it a "mutation".

I'm not knocking the logic (or lack thereof) at all, its just a tad bit comical. 


Anyways, my personal feeling on re-using yeast is "Why bother"? So many yeasts are essentially the same and its easy enough to find the same qualities in both liquid and dry forms that culturing, storing, then using the required DME to make a starter isnt excatly beneficial considering I can buy a good pack of dried yeast for a few bucks. Now if I'm doing a special brew like a belgian requiring that typical belgian spice or a german wheat, I may be inclined to spend the $8 to get that required taste. However, 95% of my brews its only me drinking on, so I really dont care. I seperate my yeast by "malt oriented" or "hop driven". 

Just my .02


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## felten (26/5/11)

liquids are a little more pricey here, and we're all really cheap.


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## gone_fishing (26/5/11)

felten said:


> I think it was a few weeks ago that I heard anchor steam brewery talking about how they've reused their yeast for like 40 years, they occasionally acid wash it, but no new cultures.
> 
> You could keep reusing your yeast until you're unhappy with the end results in the beer, or until it gets infected if you wanted to. I limit mine to using the same yeast for 3 batches in a row, but that's because it gets too long between brews for me to store it in the fridge after that.



Hey,

I bet those guys at Anchor Steam just harvest a slurry from the bottom of their fermenter and pitch with that??????

Chances are they have a yeast cultivation proceedure that would cost more per-annum than the average Aussie salary.

GF


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## felten (26/5/11)

You'd have to listen to the interview to get the specifics, I can't remember them off the top of my head.


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## Wolfy (26/5/11)

Given that Anchor Steam use 'traditional' open fermentors one would presume they top-crop and that the stresses on yeast (due to 'modern' conical fermentors that I mentioned above) are minimal, allowing them to reuse and repitch their yeast in a very different ways to most other modern breweries.


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## gone_fishing (26/5/11)

Perhaps Thirsty boy could pipe in and estimate the annual outlay to maintain the "single strain" that CUB use? I imagine Anchor steam will be in that "ballpark".
I guesstimate $200,000/annum?
GF


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## felten (26/5/11)

I think you're missing the difference in my original comment where I alluded to them re-pitching directly from a previous ferment, as opposed to re-culturing from a base stock that's kept frozen in nitrogen somewhere. They're a very traditional brewery that still uses very shallow open fermenters with no cooling jackets, just using ambient air to control the temp.

They've kept re-pitching from the bottom of the fermenter for the past 20 years, with occasional acid washing.


I had to listen to the podcast again.


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## Golani51 (26/5/11)

felten said:


> liquids are a little more pricey here, and we're all really cheap.



It is true. We can pay $15 for a good smackpack, and that cuts into drinking cash. 
How often have you had to pay $10 for a pint of ESB, or the same for a glass (330ml which is like 2/23 of a gallon in US speak  of something resembling Harpoon Leviathon Series IPA (/yyyyuuuuummmmmmmmmyyyyyy). 

It is expensive to be a snobby drunk here.


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## gone_fishing (26/5/11)

Acid washing (occasional ) and a complete microbiological assessment/culturing prior to pitching. I dont think I have missed the point (perhaps I have) but comparing Anchor Steam protocols to as the OP asked "Collecting yeast" for the typical homebrewer are extremes apart.
My point was that collecting yeast as a homebrewer is almost like doing a natural ferment. I would suggest that a homebrewer should not use yeast more than twice and only if they are feeling particularly lucky.
gf


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## gone_fishing (27/5/11)

Thirstyboy????

Out of curiosity what would you estimate the annual megabrewery yeast maintenance costs are? 

GF


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## black_labb (1/6/11)

I've been top cropping some 1469 for about 7 brews? I've directly top cropped some and I keep some in the fridge under saline solution (table salt and boiled water @9g/L) so that I dont need to brew batches too close together. 

I do 40l batches in 2 cubes (I cube hop so the beers can be fairly different as I get alot of the IBU from the cube hopping). If I use the same yeast for the beers I pitch into one, then top crop to the next once the ferment is going hapily. I was very organised one week that I was able to do another brew right away and top crop onto that one (and again for the second cube).

when I top crop to keep I boil about 750ml of water with 7gm of table salt for 15 mins, then I cool it (sink then freezer). I use a sanitised spoon with holes in it (what you would use to collect poached eggs from a pot of boiling water or similar). I collect the top cropping yeast with the spoon then rinse the spoon in the cooled saline solution. I repeat until I've collected a fair bit of yeast. That goes into a sanitised longnecked. 

I dont know how long I can expect to do this, I'm going to do some reading about acid washing so that I can be comfortable with doing things like this.

I am breaking the cycle though and using some recultured coopers yeast. Not much cheaper than a smackpack when you use 3 longnecks, but the yeast is good and drinking 3 longnecks of CPA isnt too much of a punishment. 

I'm about to break the cycle


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## Wolfy (2/6/11)

black_labb said:


> I've been top cropping some 1469 for about 7 brews? I've directly top cropped some and I keep some in the fridge under saline solution (table salt and boiled water @9g/L) so that I dont need to brew batches too close together.


Whats the theory (refrence etc) for using a saline solution rather than distilled (or plain tap) water?


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## QldKev (2/6/11)

EMalmgren said:


> It seems to me like hairs are being split here.
> 
> We can all agree that some sort of "change" happens after using the same yeast for so long, yet people are really shy about calling it a "mutation".
> 
> ...




I'm saying from my homebrewing experience I can not notice any direct change in the yeast after the second use. I assume the difference between the first and second is more to do with pitching rates. 

Maybe if the beer was not brewed in a controlled environment at a set temperature it could mutate? Maybe this is why some people talk about it. If you brew on 1272 at 22c and throw fruity flavours, then maybe the yeast do indeed become adapt to that environment. Use the same yeast cake at 16c will result in this unreliable flavour phenomenon. It is also a possibility if you live in the southern states (southern states of Australia) without a temp control environment, that due to the higher temperature variations will allow the yeast to mutate more. I'm only speculating here, but this would explain since I do ferment in a temp controlled environment and always use the same temperature for the given yeast, I don't notice it.

We must have different taste buds, because I think there is a huge difference in the final beer from the use of different yeasts. I know one local highly awarded brewer on sampling one of my beers told me which yeast strain I had brewed on, so I'm guessing he can taste the difference too. He will always use the yeast to match the beer.

For costs, I normally run two fermenters. Over say 10 brews.
Option A. A Smack pack is $9.80. So if I use fresh yeast every time, thats about $20 per brew. Over ten brews that is $200. 
Option B. If I grow yeast from a test tube I will need 400g LDME, at around $3. Then I reuse the yeast cake for the next 9 brews. Over ten brews that is $3.

I've got no issue with spending money for my hobby. But rather than spending the $ on something that I do not believe will make my beer better I would prefer to spend it on something that will help. That $197 ($200 - $3) saving from the yeast buys some nice s/s fittings, or a March pump. 

QldKev


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## black_labb (2/6/11)

Wolfy said:


> Whats the theory (refrence etc) for using a saline solution rather than distilled (or plain tap) water?



I read it somewhere on here. The idea is to match the ion concentration inside the cell walls of the yeast on the outside to reduce the transfer of ions across the cell wall which can degrade the yeast. 

That's my memory of what I had read, some details could be wrong but I'm pretty sure it's accurate enough.


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## chiller (2/6/11)

Acid washing for the home brewer is not difficult to do but does require care in approach. Usually it is done with phosphoric acid at a temperature of about 1 - 4c at a ph of 2.1 - 2.5 for 45 minutes to 90 minutes. When the washing is finished add to a starter to get it going again and brew. Acid washing will not kill wild yeast. 

I have one yeast I have used over many generations and I periodically acid wash it. That yeast is now in constant use for 9 years. Is it the same as when it was first used? Probably not, but it is still making very good beer.

I would also be interested in the reference to the saline storage of yeast because on the surface 9gms per litre is a reasonably saline solution. My concern would be the dehydration of the yeast cells over time due to osmosis [less salty yeast to more salty solution]. That may not be the case but if you doubt the saltiness of the solution add 9gms to 1 litre and taste it.

The other thing of concern is iodised salt which will definitely impact on your yeast sample. If this is a proven method double check the type of salt you use.

Hopefully more information can be posted as this may well be another way to maintain our precious little friends  .

Steve


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## Wolfy (2/6/11)

black_labb said:


> I read it somewhere on here.


I read the same, somewhere, but do not recall where. Nor have I found much/any reference to it elsewhere, so I'd be curious to know if it works better than plain/distilled water, which I've kept washed yeast-slurry in for almost a year.


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## black_labb (2/6/11)

chiller said:


> Acid washing for the home brewer is not difficult to do but does require care in approach. Usually it is done with phosphoric acid at a temperature of about 1 - 4c at a ph of 2.1 - 2.5 for 45 minutes to 90 minutes. When the washing is finished add to a starter to get it going again and brew. Acid washing will not kill wild yeast.
> 
> I have one yeast I have used over many generations and I periodically acid wash it. That yeast is now in constant use for 9 years. Is it the same as when it was first used? Probably not, but it is still making very good beer.
> 
> ...



Hi steve

I was surprised at the 9g/L as it does seem quite high. 

I cant really compare between water and saline for yeast storage. I've done both but with different yeasts. amounts ect. 

I think I'm going to try and find some more information. I didnt take much away from it aside from just the method.


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## chiller (2/6/11)

These links may give those interested in yeast a few nights reading.

http://www.ibd.org.uk/cms/file/1154

http://www.ibd.org.uk/learning/learning-re...ist/?groupID=51

Steve


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