Pitching Yeast Slurry Without A Starter

[Beerbuoy]

My first liquid yeast beer is nearly ready for the keg and now its time to think about harvesting the yeast cake. I have read most of the threads on yeast farming etc but they all involve making a starter. Is it possible to seperate the yeast cake into 3 or 4 bottles with enough yeast in each to be able pitch without a starter?
Aside from being a bit lazy I often don't have enough time off to organise a starter in advance. I would like to reuse my liquid yeast but I want to make it as easy as possible evan if it means I don't get the best value for money possible.

cheers

 

[Cortez The Killer]

I just pitch from fermenter to fermenter

A cup full or two is plenty

Cheers

 

[masculator002]

My first liquid yeast beer is nearly ready for the keg and now its time to think about harvesting the yeast cake. I have read most of the threads on yeast farming etc but they all involve making a starter. Is it possible to seperate the yeast cake into 3 or 4 bottles with enough yeast in each to be able pitch without a starter?
Aside from being a bit lazy I often don't have enough time off to organise a starter in advance. I would like to reuse my liquid yeast but I want to make it as easy as possible evan if it means I don't get the best value for money possible.

cheers

yes it is possible many will tell you to keep it in the fridge but put it into sterilised pet bottles and use it within a month. I dont store it in the fridge just in a cool cupboard sealed.

 

[donburke]

My first liquid yeast beer is nearly ready for the keg and now its time to think about harvesting the yeast cake. I have read most of the threads on yeast farming etc but they all involve making a starter. Is it possible to seperate the yeast cake into 3 or 4 bottles with enough yeast in each to be able pitch without a starter?
Aside from being a bit lazy I often don't have enough time off to organise a starter in advance. I would like to reuse my liquid yeast but I want to make it as easy as possible evan if it means I don't get the best value for money possible.

cheers

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

should help

for an ale, mr malty says you need 216ml of very thin slurry

i suggest as a start that you boil and cool around a litre of water, add this to the fermenter after you have kegged/bottled your beer, then swirl it around to mix with your yeast cake

then bottle this into 4 stubbies

keep in fridge until next brew day then remove from fridge a few hours before brew time

plus or minus a bit, you should then be able to pitch a whole stubby into your next brew

 

[Bribie G]

Are you talking about keeping some slurry from your expensive liquid yeast brew for pitching later into two, three, four future beers? In that case then at kegging time after you have transferred to keg give the vessel a good swirl and bottle the remainder as if doing a normal bottling session. You will end up with some bottles containing far more sediment, but just treat them as normal beers and prime them as normal.

Then a few weeks down the track when you think "aha I'll do a brew with yeast x" then just chill and crack a bottle of the saved x beer and if it tastes yummy, then breed up a starter with the sediment like you would do with a bottle of Coopers Sparkling and 36 hours later you will have a good lively yeast to pitch.

No need to faff about refrigeration etc, the yeast will lurk nicely in the bottle. Also it doesn't cost because you get to drink the bottle anyway :icon_cheers:

 

[muckey]

about a cup will do

if you plan on keeping the slurry for more than a week or 2 then you'll need a starter but if you are pitching a new brew as soon as you keg or bottled the fermented 1 then just pitch a cup of slurry from the finished brew

 

[Swinging Beef]

I just pitch from fermenter to fermenter
A cup full or two is plenty

+1

 

[christmasbender]

i've only recently started doing this. asked the same questions and as with most things i got a number of different answers. i also couldn't be bothered with starters right now (sometime soon i'm sure) so i just bottled the slurry from the end of the fermenter when i was transferring to secondary into a sanitized bottle and stuffed a bung and an airlock into it (used a plastic screwtop water bottle the first time and didn't release any gas for a couple of weeks. come time to repitch it exploded all over the shop)

i've pitched yeast that's been sitting on beer in the fridge for 3 - 4 weeks straight into my brew after bringing it up to room temp and had no problems. a few have told me that they tip out the beer and replace with cooled boiled water but others have said they have kept theirs on beer for months and had no problem.

cheers

christmasbender

 

[muckey]

i've pitched yeast that's been sitting on beer in the fridge for 3 - 4 weeks straight into my brew after bringing it up to room temp and had no problems. a few have told me that they tip out the beer and replace with cooled boiled water but others have said they have kept theirs on beer for months and had no problem.

cheers

christmasbender

no problem with doing this and it works most of the time but sooner or later you'll come across 1 that doesn't take off and you'll be scambling for some other yeast to pitch in there

 

[christmasbender]

no problem with doing this and it works most of the time but sooner or later you'll come across 1 that doesn't take off and you'll be scambling for some other yeast to pitch in there

hey muckey - thanks for the tip. i've always been a bit on the cautious side when it comes to yeasty matters so i keep a couple of packets of safale and saflager in the fridge for emergencies. as you say, it's bound to happen someday but i'm happy in the knowing i have a backup plan in place. will probably update my yeast farming process down the line (hopefully before i get a dud!)

cheers,

christmasbender

 

[Renegade]

Are you talking about keeping some slurry from your expensive liquid yeast brew for pitching later into two, three, four future beers? In that case then at kegging time after you have transferred to keg give the vessel a good swirl and bottle the remainder as if doing a normal bottling session. You will end up with some bottles containing far more sediment, but just treat them as normal beers and prime them as normal.

Then a few weeks down the track when you think "aha I'll do a brew with yeast x" then just chill and crack a bottle of the saved x beer and if it tastes yummy, then breed up a starter with the sediment like you would do with a bottle of Coopers Sparkling and 36 hours later you will have a good lively yeast to pitch.

No need to faff about refrigeration etc, the yeast will lurk nicely in the bottle. Also it doesn't cost because you get to drink the bottle anyway :icon_cheers:

I love this idea, even after fining there'de probably be enough dropped yeast in three bottles of your very own to make a starter. It means you have to actually make a starter (so not ideal for the OP) but on the other hand you arent wasting your time going through the process of sanitising bottles and reserving trub specifically for the purpose of repitching.

 

[muckey]

hey muckey - thanks for the tip. i've always been a bit on the cautious side when it comes to yeasty matters so i keep a couple of packets of safale and saflager in the fridge for emergencies. as you say, it's bound to happen someday but i'm happy in the knowing i have a backup plan in place. will probably update my yeast farming process down the line (hopefully before i get a dud!)

cheers,

christmasbender

no prob - happen to me not so long ago. after 48 hours it still wasnt anywhere close to krausen so it got the only thin I had on hand - US05. turned out a nice beer though :lol:

 

[Katherine]

Keep some beer on top so you can taste if its good or not...

 

[Beerbuoy]

Cheers people

I'll add a litre of sterile water to the yeast cake and see if I can get 4 stubbies of yeast. From the response it sounds plausible so I can only try. Hopefully the second one will go down the day after kegging the first brew so it should be OK. The other 3 will be trail and error I spose. I hope to be able to keep a stubbie of yeast under sterile water in the fridge for a couple months and still be able to pitch without a starter.
Will keep some S04 on hand just in case.

 

[flattop]

do it in a 2 liter pet bottle (soft drink etc) add dme and water slowly until you have a big enough yeast cake to divide into a few stubbies, if you use a bottle cap then either don't tighten it or let the pressure out every day. When you have around a litre of slurry/ beer, swill it around to stir it up and pour into 4 stubbies. Top up the stubbies with boiled cool water and cap them off.....

 

[seemax]

i bought some 500mL plastic containers from supermarket that have a nice tight lid
sanitise before bottling, then scoop as much of the thick slurry as possible, with a little of the wort
seal up and throw in the fridge

come brew time, i use about half the slurry (1 cup maybe) for ales or almost all of it for lagers
leave half behind for your next ale, always leave some behind for future starters

if it's dry yeast you can get 3 brews out of one sachet without starters, which works out at maybe $1.50 a brew... for liquids at $15 a pop it makes sense to do starters

 

[Screwtop]

My first liquid yeast beer is nearly ready for the keg and now its time to think about harvesting the yeast cake. I have read most of the threads on yeast farming etc but they all involve making a starter. Is it possible to seperate the yeast cake into 3 or 4 bottles with enough yeast in each to be able pitch without a starter?
Aside from being a bit lazy I often don't have enough time off to organise a starter in advance. I would like to reuse my liquid yeast but I want to make it as easy as possible evan if it means I don't get the best value for money possible.

cheers

If you want enough to use without making a starter, normally for ales around 200ml of thick slurry is required. If you're going to store it for some time then maybe you should up the amount of this yeast slurry to 300ml as yeast viability will reduce with storage time. Do a search re yeast farming/culturing, yeast washing, reusing yeastcake. Use the search function there is heaps of FACTUAL info available.

Cheers,

Screwy

 

[Beerbuoy]

Yep, going by the Mr Malty calculator I think 2 months is about the limit for a stubbie of yeast. After that the amount required goes through the roof making it impractical. Any more than 2 months I think a starter would be a better idea.

Cheers