Great Yeast Advice At The Bhb Conference

[Bribie G]

John Carroll from Whitelabs gave a brilliant presentation and has turned me around on a couple of things I've been doing.

When growing yeast in a starter, I like to give it a good strong wort to feed on and look out for a lot of krausen and CO2 production - the wilder it is, the better the starter is doing.

Fail - around 1040 at the most, and there should be no krausen or gas production. That's fermentation. We don't want fermentation, we want growth, then the yeast will drop to a thin creamy layer that can be recovered and pitched.

A cup of slurry pitched into the next brew will get it off to a good start.

Sort of Fail. Most of that slurry will be trub and proteins and dead yeast - best to wash it in cooled preboiled water, shake it up, let the useless trub settle into a layer then drain off the upper pure yeast layer and pitch or culture that.

After primary, cold crash the beer to settle all the crap out, then save the yeast from the bottom.

Fail. Your'e saving yeast that has been horribly stressed. If wishing to retrieve yeast, then save slurry left in the primary at primary temperature, after running off the beer to cold conditioning. Wash as above.


He did say that storing slurry in a bottle in the fridge, also pitching onto a yeast cake will work and will make beer, but recommends a bit more finesse as above.

Brilliant stuff, especially if read in conjunction with the Yeast book. I'm definitely going back to racking to cubes for lagering/ cold conditioning. Nearly all my previous comp winners were made on that system so I have no problem with it.

 

[kelbygreen]

hmm thats some good info there bribie I have not done any of them yet but plan to so this should help I was going to keep some yeast from the 3 brews I have on ATM but might just pitch onto the yeast cake to see what happens. 1 of the 3 I can do it properly so will try that but will just use more yeast and pitch straight away with the ones in the cubes I have waiting

 

[peaky]

Nice one. According to John Carroll I'm doing my starters right. Glad to have that confirmed.

My starter wort is always around 1040 and I never get krausen but I still get the thin creamy layer of yeast on the bottom of the flask for pitching.

 

[Bribie G]

He did say that if pitching existing yeast cake, to always pitch yeast used in a lower alc beer into a higher alc brew, not the other way around. For example yeast used in a RIS is about on its last legs after a long and rugged fermentation and half dead with alcohol poisoning, [= yeast shit] and shouldn't be pitched into, say, a 4.5% dry stout. He gave the example that if you have just run a full marathon it's not fair to expect you to run another half marathon immediately afterwards.

Guy really empathises with his yeasties

 

[Rowy]

He certainly seemed to know his stuff. I thought his presentation was great. Also liked the young bloke from Bundy and his homegrown hops.

 

[Bribie G]

That was Ekul from this forum, he popped in here last week and breathed on my single hop plant, and muttered some words over it - much needed B)

 

[dr K]

Buy (or borrow) Yeast. Read it.
Learn about starters.
I was at the new Whitelabs labs about 10 days ago, they have a "schoolroom' set up, mainly for training commercial brewers I guess but it shows the emphasis they have on Education (or perhaps with all the misinformation out there re-education).
I am happy enough to pay $8 for a vial of fresh yeast, start it up (using Yeast method) more than enough for 40 odd litres, my normal batch, then throw it out with the trub. It is not like fresh yeast is rare anymore.K

 

[marksfish]

Buy (or borrow) Yeast. Read it.
Learn about starters.
I was at the new Whitelabs labs about 10 days ago, they have a "schoolroom' set up, mainly for training commercial brewers I guess but it shows the emphasis they have on Education (or perhaps with all the misinformation out there re-education).
I am happy enough to pay $8 for a vial of fresh yeast, start it up (using Yeast method) more than enough for 40 odd litres, my normal batch, then throw it out with the trub. It is not like fresh yeast is rare anymore.K

unless the strain is seasonal.

 

[kelbygreen]

hmm true about putting it on a bigger beer bribie. My last one was 1065 and I plan to do a IPA but not sure what yeast to use I have a trappist I think and a abbey yeast, the trappist seems to have more hop flavour to it (same brew in both) and says its ok upto 10-11% ABV so might go with that one. Hope it turns out ok lol

 

[Bribie G]

On the point of reculturing, he said that they encourage us to do that for a generation or so, at least, as the yeast often "comes into its own" in subsequent brews - the yeast they supply is all nicely virginal and un-budded and produced under strict lab conditions and will often produce a slightly different and often less charactaristic brew compared to the yeast of the same variety that has been round the blocks a couple of times.

Yes, the yeast book is my bedside companion.

 

[jpScarfac3]

Buy the Yeast book buy Jamil and Chris White. Best brewing book I've bought!

 

[Mayor of Mildura]

I agree this is sound advise but it isn't new and it is hardly the holy grail. I treat most information on here with a grain of salt and this is one of them. I would have to be having some sort of issue to change to a more complicated process.

I thought making a starter from 1040 wort was common knowledge? Aside from that what problems have you had from making a starter from a higher gravity wort?
Pitching a cup of slurry into your next brew does get it off to a good start. Works well for me. Why would I complicate my process more?
Using the yeast from primary after it has all settled out works and makes good beer. What sort of finessing is going to make it better?
I store slurry in the fridge and I also use slurry from higher gravity beers in subsequent lower gravity beers.

I understand you are just sharing the love Bribie. But I reckon that you need to tell the whole story. There are many ways to skin a cat.

What would be more interesting to hear would be if you are having issues e.g. I made this beer with x fault in it and i think it was a yeast related issue so I am going to use one of these methods to rectify it. And then follow up with actual results.

Cheers