Re-using Yeast

[famousguy]

I have heard people talk about cultured yeasts and re-using yeast from both previous brews as well as from the bottom of say coopers stubbies. I was wondering what methods people use to achieve this. I know that to utilise these cultured yeast you should make a "starter" but let's back the truck up a little....Let me pitch (geddit?) two scenarios:

1. Brew has just finished primary fermentation (Safale yeast), how do I go about preserving and cultivating the yeast from the trub to use at a later date? How much of the trub should be retained?

2. Have downed a couple of Coopers Pale Ale's....there is sediment in the bottle...how do I go about preserving and cultivating the yeast from the sediment in the bottle? How many bottles worth of sediment is required for a brew?

I expect the answers to the scenarios would be fairly similar, so suggestions please!

 

[Linz]

Okey dokey Famous,

Firstly if you have used pellets or t-bag hops and the bag broke...dont use the trub from the primary.Rack it and use the cake(trub) from the secondary(this leaves all the hop debris behind).
What I do, and some may disagree, is bottle/keg the beer from the secondary. When I get near the end I give the fermenter a "light" swirl and then bottle using 5-6 stubbies and fill them as per normal BUT "NO PRIMING SUGARS". If you bulk prime take it from your 2ndary fermenter NOT your bottling bucket. Then straight into the fridge with them.

Culturing from a bottle/stubbie requires some fore thought. Make up a malt solution(I do 1 table spoon to every 250 ml).Boiled then cooled(have been known to use tap water in a rush).
Open stubbie and pour contents into glass except for last 10-15 mm of bottle.
Pour malt solution into stubbie and put rubber bung with hole thru it into bottle and fit air lock to rubber bung.
Remember to aerate the malt solution and mix the contents in the bottle.
This should ferment in about 3-4 days. On the third day make up about 600ml of solution and use a 750-800ml bottle(cleaned and sanitized).Pour off the liquid over the new cake in the stubbie same as before and add to the 600ml in the larger bottle. This should suffice for an ale "starter" after a few days. For a lager repeat the process once more but make 1.8litres of malt solution and use a 2lt coke/pepsi bottle and pitch after two days.

I personally use method one to collect yeast and then use method two to make brews with. Also I have used a stubbie as a pitching yeast, very nervous wait, not recommended

 

[JasonY]

Certainly not an expert at this but since moving onto liquid yeast economics are encouraging me to propogate yeast.

Typically (so far I have only done this a couple of times) I make a 2.5L starter and chuck my new Wyeast yeast into it. When I am ready to pitch the yeast into the brew I first half fill two 375ml Coke bottles (plastic, cleaned & sterilised) and bung them in the fridge, the rest is into the brew.

When I rack I usually half to 3/4 fill one or more coke bottles with the swirled up contents of the bottom of the primary (beer + trub). Try and get more liquid than trub. These are thrown in the fridge.

Usually check them for a week or two and crack the lid to relieve the pressure. Next brew I use one of the coke bottles a day or two prior to pitching to make a starter. As far as I can tell its just a balancing act on the shelf life of my coke bottles.

I figure if I can get 6 brews from one wyeast pack then the initial $15 outlay is not so bad.

Working so far, I always taste the starter before pitching to make sure its not foul and have a safale in the fridge for backup.

 

[RobW]

Hi Famous (great sig. btw)

look here under materials & methods:

http://craftbrewer.org/

 

[johnno]

famousguy,
I followed the instructions from the Grumpys and a couple of other sites for the yeast propagation from a Coopers bottle. They all basically say the same thing. It worked fine and I ended up using it with a Brewiser Australian Ale kit.
I wasnt sure how it would turn out but now that ive done it once I have the confidence to do it again.
The beer tastes good and I,m happy with the results.

cheers

 

[Trough Lolly]

I've got some Coopers Kit yeast sachets left over from previous brews, where I bought some yeast instead of using the sachet in the kit.

I want to brew the GMK Australian Draught recipe and was wondering if I am going to do any damage if I chuck in more than one sachet of Ale yeast?? I have a spare Brewiser ale yeast and was thinking of tossing it in along with the Coopers kit yeast, at pitching time. The kits were purchased only a month or two ago.

Any probs with that :huh: ?

TL

 

[famousguy]

Thanks for all your advice...will do a bit more reading on craftbrewes and grumpys. If I simply try and make a few starters then I will get the idea pretty quickly if my methods are going to work or not.

Would using multiple stubbies worth of sediment improve my chances? Also would my results be much better with a liquid yeast?

Trough - I would be wary about mixing the two yeasts...if they were both coopers yeast sachets there would be less of an issue.

 

[RegBadgery]

I recently tried transferring from primary fermenter to another after a couple of days - wort developed a new head of yeast and I left lots of rubbish behind in the primary fermenter - ended up with a lovely clean yeast cake.

I've also had good success pitching directly onto yeast left behind in the secondary fermenter.

cheers
reg

 

[Jazman]

well liquid yeast are the go as with most kit yeast are designed to be used witha malt extract and sugar combo but as we add more malt extract ect the beer has a higher finishing gravity and these kit yeast don feremnt them as well as the safal and saflarger or liquid yeast but i have thrown in two packets of the same yeast before and my old yeast i mix it with boiling water and let cool down and throw in the fermenter or stater for som yeast nutrient