# Yeast washing question



## welly2 (28/4/16)

So had a bash at doing some yeast washing from my last batch, an English bitter with Wyeast London ESB yeast.

I followed one of many tutorials - basically did the followed. Boiled a couple of jars in water and kept the boiled water in the jars. Transferred the trub/yeast/little bit of beer from my fermenter into a big (sanitised/sterilised) jar, popped the lid on and let it settle and separate. It pretty much settled into three fairly equal levels of beer, yeast and trub. I then poured away the top layer of beer and was careful not to lose any of the yeast. Then I poured in one of the smaller jars of sterilised water, gave it a good shake and let it settle.

This is what it now looks like:





Seems my trub and yeast has intermingled and become one. What now? Is it still useable? I'm not sure I'd be entirely happy using it.


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## welly2 (29/4/16)

I think I'm going to dump it. There's too much hop matter in it and the yeast isn't separating from the trub. I'll try again with another fermenter of slurry!


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## crowmanz (29/4/16)

Pic is a bit blurry but looks like you got a thin separated line of yeast. I'd still use it, make a starter and decant the yeast off when you make your next beer.


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## welly2 (29/4/16)

crowmanz said:


> Pic is a bit blurry but looks like you got a thin separated line of yeast. I'd still use it, make a starter and decant the yeast off when you make your next beer.


I'll have a go! There might be some yeast that can be rescued!


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## Ducatiboy stu (29/4/16)

I think your problem is that you dont have enough water in there for the amount of trub

If you can get it to settle better then drain it off, pour some more water in gently and give it a light stir. This will stir up the yeast layer so you can then drain off the cloudy yeasty water


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## welly2 (29/4/16)

Ducatiboy stu said:


> I think your problem is that you dont have enough water in there for the amount of trub
> 
> If you can get it to settle better then drain it off, pour some more water in gently and give it a light stir. This will stir up the yeast layer so you can then drain off the cloudy yeasty water


Awesome, thanks. I'll try that.


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## Yob (29/4/16)

Way too thick, 1/4 to 1/3 max volume of slurry in the rinsing vessel, when learning the craft, thinner is better.

With 1/4 jar, top up with your water and allow 20 minutes before pouring off.

Repeat


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## michaeld16 (29/4/16)

Agree with the not enough water comments this looks exactly like my first attempt. The next time i doubled the amount of water and turned out alot more yeasty than trub looking.


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## Danscraftbeer (29/4/16)

I will only bother to do the wash yeast from the clearest type of wort ferment in the first place.
If there is lots of matter I wont bother recycling.
Make point that every process you do is vulnerable to compromising and contamination and quality. 
Its a great learning card to have up your sleeve for brewing. Get it right and you make, or harvest many dollars worth of really good yeast. B)

My yeast recycling now is more basic than ever. Pressure ferment a Pale Ale around 4% ABV. C02 pressure transfer on the next brew day and fill the empty kegmenter with a higher IPA style beer onto the yeast cake. 
I have only done this to 2nd culture. That still makes up for a dollar value but its more about being able to do it is the best value.


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## 60.lewdogg.9 (9/5/16)

Danscraftbeer said:


> My yeast recycling now is more basic than ever. Pressure ferment a Pale Ale around 4% ABV. C02 pressure transfer on the next brew day and fill the empty kegmenter with a higher IPA style beer onto the yeast cake.
> I have only done this to 2nd culture. That still makes up for a dollar value but its more about being able to do it is the best value.


Ide hate to see the trub layer after 4-5 transfers haha. But to use the yeast cake once is a good idea. Ill give it a shot. Btw, what psi u fermenting at?


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## Yob (9/5/16)

I've rinsed and Re used 10+ times.. As long as you're careful there is no upper limit..

Flavour drift is the only reason to stop or reset


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## GABBA110360 (9/5/16)

i've washed coopers bottle yeast from trub after 3 brews on the same basic yeast cake.
that's what i'll do tomorrow.
the original washed yeast was used for batch 1 then 3/4 of yeast cake used for batch 2 going of in a couple of hours of pitching
tomorrow i'll rack to fermenter co2 purged for finings and then pith batch 3 on 3/4 of that cake in new fermenter .
batch 1 pale ale 2 pale ale different batch 3 dark ale all 46 l brews and all the same hops .
then i'll wash the yeast out of last batch for next time.
it works fine you just gotta be pedantic about clean
cheers


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## Danscraftbeer (9/5/16)

60.lewdogg.9 said:


> Ide hate to see the trub layer after 4-5 transfers haha. But to use the yeast cake once is a good idea. Ill give it a shot. Btw, what psi u fermenting at?


I try to ferment at 8 to 10 psi for the furious first 3 days. I do this in concern of the yeast being under pressure. Up the temp 1c a day for next 2 days its done basically. After 6th day I chill it. For Ale. As Gabba mentioned I'm also on the coopers yeast at the moment. But any recycled yeast cake brew is brewing in hours. Almost instantly I think with a dose of O2. The pressure gets from zero up to 10psi in say 6 hours from mixing with the new wort. My monitoring is a bit slack sometimes and been surprized to see the next day it creeping up to 20psi and then adjust it down to 8 to 10psi.


*Back to Recycling the yeast* I'm thinking of a customized long handle stainless scoop spoon to dip into the kegmenter. Scrape the clean cream of the yeast cake and jar/wash it.
Instead of the whole yeast cake and dirty Krauesen ring. Although its great to not clean and sanitize the kegmenter as well as not fussing with yeast starters. Its a lazy option but can work fantastic as well. At least for a 2nd brew. - That's 80lt of beer made from the sediment of 8 stubbies of Coopers.


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## kaiserben (8/7/16)

Rather than start a new thread I'll ask my yeast washing question here: 

I boiled up some water and glass jars, but they took much longer than expected to cool down, so I ended up leaving them over night in the fridge. 

But that meant that, after bottling a batch of beer, I had to leave the yeast cake sitting in the fermenter overnight at room temp. The fermenter was covered, and the yeast cake was covered by a small amount of spent wort. I proceeded with the yeast washing process in the morning.

Any problems with leaving the yeast like that? I'd assume not considering the whole batch was previously fermenting at room temp.


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## Mardoo (8/7/16)

Nope, especially considering that it was already at room temp.


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## Let's Brew Beer (13/3/17)

Should be fine, i've just done the same thing and poured the slurry into three 270ml bottles. Sanitized of course with boil-cooled water and awaiting seperation.


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## lfc_ozzie (13/3/17)

Hey guys,

I just invested in one of these, they are called a Separatory Funnel






Saw a guy use one on YouTube for his yeast washing, basically he did it the same, just dumped the jars into this and let settle then transferred the yeast out into a storage container and covered with a little distilled water. 

Could probably even dump straight from fermenter into this, let settle and dump the trub. This thing looks amazing, not sure why it hasn't taken off more. I got a 2l version for $50, once it arrives ill put up some pics of it in action


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## Mikeyr (13/3/17)

lfc_ozzie said:


> Hey guys,
> 
> I just invested in one of these, they are called a Separatory Funnel
> 
> ...


Me too! Been stuffing around with mason jars and saw the same video, can see a new thread once we get them set up!!!

Oh and everyone else has nailed it .... not enough water ...... and my only real fail was that yeast. Hard time getting enough volume of yeast separate from the trub. Best of luck genuinely!!I 've tried a couple of times and not nailed that one!


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## BKBrews (13/3/17)

I did my first yeast harvest on my last beer - a pilsner using WLP802 Budejovice Lager yeast. It was extremely easy, but potentially because there was no dry hopping.

I didn't do any of the boiling jars, I just boiled and cooled about 2L of water and sanitised the clean jars.

1. Rack beer off cake
2. Add the ~2L of water to the cake and swirl until entirely in suspension
3. Fill 4 jars via fermenter tap and let settle briefly until you see the layers start to seperate
4. Pour the milky liquid layer of each jar into one larger vessel and discard the trub layer
5. Clean jars out and re-sanitise
6. Swirl large vessel and transfer liquid into as many jars as possible, ensuring the fill is right to the rim
7. Put lids on and refrigerate

After a few days the yeast flocced out and the liquid went super clear, leaving about 1cm of fresh yeast in each of my 2 500ml jars. I was stressing about doing this beforehand, but it was really easy. Will be interesting to try on a brew with a massive amount of dry hops!


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## Smotgon (30/8/17)

lfc_ozzie said:


> Hey guys,
> 
> I just invested in one of these, they are called a Separatory Funnel
> 
> ...


Hi mate I seen this video too and I am interested in the outcome of this process? Your feedback would be awesome!


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## mtb (30/8/17)

I grabbed myself one of these separatory funnels a couple months ago, but the little stopper at the bottom doesn't quite seal properly. It's just glass on glass, no rubber seal, so I'm not too surprised. Pay close attention to that if you buy your own.. I know it sounds like common sense to check for that, but I also thought it was common sense for it to seal properly by default.


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## Bribie G (30/8/17)

I bought one of these from Aldi a couple of years ago to serve strong farmhouse cider. I inadvertently destroyed the thing on a tiled floor so it was short lived. 

However bugger me dead I should have done some lateral thinking there... 10L, dismantle-able for cleaning... pour in and dilute a whole yeast cake. 

$16

Keep eyes peeled, they've been around a few times now.


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## TidalPete (30/8/17)

You ideally need a ratio of four parts sterilised water to one part yeast slurry for a successful result & a parallel-sided vessel is best according to the "Yeast" book
This glass vase from a local el-cheapo emporium holds 4.5 litres & works brilliantly.
Having said that, other vessels of various shapes will probably get the job done I'm sure.
Top-cropping via a sterilised blow-off tube is also possible with some of the big top-cropping yeasts depending on your fermenter head space.


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## Smotgon (30/8/17)

Good point mtb never thought they wouldn't seal,there made for laboratory use too! Leaking vessels in a lab sounds dangerous...Great cheap alternatives there too guys, I might opt for something along these lines! Thanks


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## Lionman (31/8/17)

The trick is to pour off the yeast as soon as possible. It looks like in the picture in the op, the slurry has been left to settle for too long.

Trub will fall out of suspension pretty quickly as its bigger heavier chunks.

I pour the bulk of the yeast cake into an erlenmeyer flask mix 50/50 with water. Stick it in the fridge with some glad wrap over it,only takes 30mins or less usually and I pour the cloudy liquid into a reagent bottle. The shape of the flask makes it very easy to separate the solids from the liquids.

Let that settle out overnight, pour off the liquid and re dilute the yeast with clean water.You will now have what I believe to be a yeast solution that is more than pure enough for hem brewing requirements.


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