First Attempt At Yeast Multiplying

[Henno]

Ok, here's what it looks like so far.

I rang Batz and he was very helpful getting me this far. I started with 2/3 cup of light malt boiled in 2 litres of water and wacked in the smack pack after it had swelled up. This only took 3 hours which surprised me.

As Batz told me there wasn't much action in the airlock. The next day I transfered the lot into another litre or so with half a cup of LME boiled and cooled into it. I went from a 3 litre juice bottle to this 5 litre water bottle. I found out the hard way that shaking the 3 litre bottle with the yeast in it was a bad idea. I took the airlock out of it and put the lid on and shook like shit. Instantly the bottle was as hard as a rock and getting the lid off was a delicate procedure that took a while. It went into the 5 litre water bottle after I had shaken the shit out of that to oxygenate it.

A little bit of airlock action last night and this arvo this is what it looks like. All action has ceased now.

I figure 4 litres or so of this goop won't fit into 6 or 7 stubbies so should I pour off the top litre or so then give it a swirl and then half fill my 330ml stubbies and cap them? I am not ready to attempt the brew I bought this yeast so intend to bottle the lot.

Also does the yeast in the bottom of this look like enough to make 6 starters out of?



Thanks
Henno

 

[chris.taylor.98]

Hi Henno,

When are you planning on using the yeast?

It really only keeps for a couple of weeks before you should pitch it.

Also I would recommend not putting into stubbies and capping it, as it can still keep going after you bottle it. Just keep it on something with a screw-on cap that you can open to release pressure if you have to.

In regards to the amount of yeast, it varies depending on the OG of the beer and the type of yeast.

Here is a link to a yeast calculator that tries to give you a guide. I must admit I don't usually cultivate as much as it recommends ( mainly through laziness ).

http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html

Usually I start off with either one smack and make a starter about 3 days out ( usually about 2 ltrs ), or I start with a yeast slant and step it up to 2ltrs over a week. Note some of the stronger beers and most the lagers need about 4ltr starters.

Cheers

Chris

 

[Keifer]

Try just swirling it around slowly instead of shaking it violently.

 

[DJR]

Chuck it in the fridge, wait for it all to settle, pour off as much of the "beer" as you can and add some sterile (cooled, boiled tap, NOT distilled/demineralized) water, as much as you need to fill the number of stubbies you want, then mix it up into the water and then bottle that. Will keep for a lot longer in sterile water than beer.

Doing it that way means you can wash the yeast as well - just wait a little while after adding the water for stuff to start settling which will mainly be hop residue and trub which is not what you want, the yeast will be in suspension in the water which can be poured off giving you almost pure yeast and water

 

[Henno]

DJR, I think your explanation is what has been doing my head in regarding what to keep and what to throw out. I am not being nasty I am probably just a bit slow It's probably the downside to trying to learn on the net and not hands on with someone pointing to a bottle and explaining it one on one.

In your first paragraph you say you want all the stuff to settle and then you pour off the 'beer' and by that I gather you mean down the sink. I have actually done this with a coopers sparkling yeast I got from a 6 pack of stubbies. But the beer with them I poured down me. I 'washed' this yeast with sterile water several times. In my fridge I now have a jar of settled gunk with almost pure water on top of it.

In the second paragraph you say the stuff that settles is trub that you don't want. Is this just for a short period after you shake the hell out of what has completely settled? By that I mean if I shake up my glass of coopers in the fridge can I just pitch the top bit after some stuff has settled for a few minutes?

My belgian strong ale yeast is still very cloudy as you can see. I gather pouring the beer off at the moment would be wasting a lot of yeast.

 

[DJR]

DJR, I think your explanation is what has been doing my head in regarding what to keep and what to throw out. I am not being nasty I am probably just a bit slow It's probably the downside to trying to learn on the net and not hands on with someone pointing to a bottle and explaining it one on one.

In your first paragraph you say you want all the stuff to settle and then you pour off the 'beer' and by that I gather you mean down the sink. I have actually done this with a coopers sparkling yeast I got from a 6 pack of stubbies. But the beer with them I poured down me. I 'washed' this yeast with sterile water several times. In my fridge I now have a jar of settled gunk with almost pure water on top of it.

In the second paragraph you say the stuff that settles is trub that you don't want. Is this just for a short period after you shake the hell out of what has completely settled? By that I mean if I shake up my glass of coopers in the fridge can I just pitch the top bit after some stuff has settled for a few minutes?

My belgian strong ale yeast is still very cloudy as you can see. I gather pouring the beer off at the moment would be wasting a lot of yeast.

It all depends on the time - leave the first bit for 24h to have everything flocc out (yeast and trub), pour off the beer and then add sterile water, wait a few minutes with the vessel in the fridge/freezer and the heavy stuff will go first. If you pour off the beer in the first step without waiting for everything to drop you'll lose yeast.

The point is the first step leaves yeast and trub (i guess you could pour off the beer at this stage, settle that etc but it's easier to shove it in the fridge for 24h), then the 2nd step removes the yeast from the trub made in the 1st step

 

[BOG]

Henno,

Put the stuff in a bottle and put it in the fridge. The yeast will go to sleep.

You will see the yeast fall to the bottom and water sitting on top.
The water is beer, it's brown. Pour this off down the sink and add some clean water. Warning: only fill to 50% of the bottle. You'll see why in a second.
Give it a swirl, not a shake. The yeast will come back to life and foam up to fill the bottle. (hence 50%)

Also, as an experiment, Hold the bottom of the bottle. The heat from your hand will wake up some yeast and it gets going again in about a minute.

Do the water, fridge, pour sequence a couple of time and you'll get clear water on top and Yeast on the bottom. I use about 50:50 water to yeast in the final jar and swirl to make it a slurry. I then pour off amounts to kick off a brew into Maccona Coffee Jars. I've tried baby food jars but as the yeast sometimes continues to give off CO2 over time it becomes increasingly difficult to get the lid off.

Now remember you need only a small amount of yeast to kick off a brew as you are no longer talking about a 4 litre starter but about 100 - 150ml of pure yeast.

A baby food jar of yeast, not water, will start a 23litre brew bubbling in about 20 minutes and a 40cm Krausen in about 6 hours.

Hope this helps.

P.S. Washed yeast lasts at least 6 months in a 4Deg fridge. Some say longer but I've never tried it.


BOG

 

[Benniee]

Has anyone attempted this starter/storage method to get more out of dry yeast?

I've just bought a couple of packets of Swiss Lager yeast from Craftbrewer and I would like to get a couple of brews out of each packet.

I imagine it's just a matter of adding a portion of the dry yeast to the starter rather than the smack-pack, but how much of the dry yeast would you add? And how do you store the remaining dry yeast once it's been opened?

Benniee

 

[BenH]

Benniee, my suggestion would be to use your dried yeast as per normal in the first batch, and then collect the yeast from the cake at the bottom of the primary fermenter. Wash as outlined above (and elsewhere on this forum) and re-pitch to your new brew. I don't think dried yeast would need any different handling.

 

[Benniee]

Benniee, my suggestion would be to use your dried yeast as per normal in the first batch, and then collect the yeast from the cake at the bottom of the primary fermenter. Wash as outlined above (and elsewhere on this forum) and re-pitch to your new brew. I don't think dried yeast would need any different handling.

I was just reading about this, but being a lager yeast I was wondering if collecting the yeast that drops in the primary fermenter would yield a different result than the original (ie. floccates out earlier).

From my understanding it should all be the one strain, so it shouldn't make a difference. I think I'll give it a try after the next batch.

Ben