Rinsing Yeast (in Pictures)

[Nossil]

Great thread! I've been reusing slurry lately but find that if its been over 2 weeks since my last brew day i dont want to risk throwing the trub/yeast/beer into the fermenter.

Recently purchased some liquid yeast for $12 for a wheat beer, and really like the idea of stretching this over 2 or 3 more batches to bring down the cost!! So time to do some rinsing for long term storage!

For those of you who rinse yeast, how do you sanitise/sterilise?

Boiling all the glass jars in a big pot for 20mins appears to be the most effecting way.
What about the vessles for storing the cleaned yeast? (IE the corona bottles?) Quick shake and soak in nappysan, rinse and idophor?

 

[JaseH]

I go about this a slightly different way, I only like to store a small amount of yeast and step it up the week before I brew. This way I can have a few yeast strains stored in the fridge and they are not taking up a lot of room and I am not pressured to brew a particular style just to use the yeast I have washed.

What I do is make my starter slightly larger than I need for a brew and save some of the slurry from the starter. I generally take 2 small sample jars from a starter before pitching the rest into the beer. Its already pretty clean as I just use DME for the first couple of steps of the starter, so very little trub and no hop material. I figure the yeast is also probably healthier at this stage. Once its settled out in the sample jar in the fridge I pour the starter beer off and top it up with boiled and cooled water. They store fine this way for months until I am ready to step it up again for the next beer using that yeast.

This also means I can dry hop the bejeezus out of my American Ales without having to worry about washing the yeast afterwards.

 

[Yob]

What about the vessles for storing the cleaned yeast? (IE the corona bottles?) Quick shake and soak in nappysan, rinse and idophor?

The same process you use to sanitise anything mate, only more so..

Clean - Rinse - Sanitise - Use

 

[Nossil]

I had a go at this last night, and got the following result:







As you can see, sweet FA yeast was 'saved'. I filled up the fermenter with around 500mls of water, swirled, and waited 20 mins.
Emptied around 70% of the slurry/water mix into two jars and waited another 20 mins.
'decanted' a small amount of water/beer mixture off the top of the jar into the sink, put the rest in another clean jar, leaving some trub behind, then topped up the new jar with more water.

Repeated this another two times.


Maybe I went a bit overboard and ended up pouring most of the yeast down the sink? I wasn't getting much separation after 20-30 mins of waiting, so was very hard to distinguish between yeast/trub/hop debris

If I empty out most of the water from the above jars and combine into one jar, will this be enough to kick off a starter and dump into a new batch?

 

[Yob]

As you can see, sweet FA yeast was 'saved'. I filled up the fermenter with around 500mls of water, swirled, and waited 20 mins.

Why wait? The idea is rinsing the trub out anyway

Emptied around 70% of the slurry/water mix into two jars and waited another 20 mins.

This seems a bit odd.. what you want to do is add 1/4 of a jar of slurry and then top up with cooled boiled water

'decanted' a small amount of water/beer mixture off the top of the jar into the sink, put the rest in another clean jar, leaving some trub behind, then topped up the new jar with more water.

Repeated this another two times.


Maybe I went a bit overboard and ended up pouring most of the yeast down the sink? I wasn't getting much separation after 20-30 mins of waiting, so was very hard to distinguish between yeast/trub/hop debris

dilute further, if you cannot see the separation it is often because the mixture is still too thick

If I empty out most of the water from the above jars and combine into one jar, will this be enough to kick off a starter and dump into a new batch?

Yep, if you are doing a starter you look to have plenty of yeast to do the job

:icon_cheers:

 

[Nossil]

Thanks Yob,

Why wait? The idea is rinsing the trub out anyway

I thought that was the first part of the rinsing? As per instructions in OP?


Am I right in thinking that the light brown liquid that takes up 95% of the jar in the picture I posted is not yeast? Or better yet, won't be yeast when I pitch in a few weeks.

So when making a starter I should decant most of the liquid layer, give it a bit of a swirl, and tip it in?

I ask this because I only have a 1L flask, and if I add the entire contents of the jar to the starter there won't be much room for any wort (DME)!

 

[thebeemann]

Saying that they will probably break on me some time soon, so i might update with some new bottles which means drinking more juice :angry:

Add some vodka and make the girls drink it
Awsome thread will be trying this soon easier than making slants all the time , just incase you like a strain do you think you could make slants from washed yeast ?

 

[Wolfy]

I thought that was the first part of the rinsing? As per instructions in OP?

The OP says "10 to 15 mins" not 20.
In my "Yeast Rinsing Experiment" I found that after that after about 10 mins the yeast was still in suspension but much of the trub had settled, but at 20mins the yeast had started to settle out also. Obviously it will depend on the yeast/conditions/wort/your technique but it could be that more of yeast was left in the fermentor than would have been ideal.

 

[Nossil]

Oops! h34r:


Well this was just a trial run on some safbrew S33. Real test will be saving some of the WLP300 that I'm going to put down this weekend. Tad more expensive than the dried yeast I'm used to buying!!

 

[Malted]

Real test will be saving some of the WLP300 that I'm going to put down this weekend. Tad more expensive than the dried yeast I'm used to buying!!

IMO if you are using liquid wheat yeasts AND desire the banana characteristics to be maintained, yeast rinsing is not the go. I have found that when using rinsed liquid wheat yeast it looses it's ability to produce banana esters but maintains the ability to produce clove phenolics. Some people do not like banana esters and prefer clove phenolics so this would suit them perfectly. I have not tried top cropping a liquid wheat yeast and then subsequent reuse, perhaps this may be a different story? I would split the original liquid wheat yeast into 4 sanitised containers and make a starter from each as required, if you wanted to maintain banana esters in the brews.

This is a simplified account, there are more factors involved than I have discussed.

 

[OneEye]

I go about this a slightly different way, I only like to store a small amount of yeast and step it up the week before I brew. This way I can have a few yeast strains stored in the fridge and they are not taking up a lot of room and I am not pressured to brew a particular style just to use the yeast I have washed.

What I do is make my starter slightly larger than I need for a brew and save some of the slurry from the starter. I generally take 2 small sample jars from a starter before pitching the rest into the beer. Its already pretty clean as I just use DME for the first couple of steps of the starter, so very little trub and no hop material. I figure the yeast is also probably healthier at this stage. Once its settled out in the sample jar in the fridge I pour the starter beer off and top it up with boiled and cooled water. They store fine this way for months until I am ready to step it up again for the next beer using that yeast.

This also means I can dry hop the bejeezus out of my American Ales without having to worry about washing the yeast afterwards.

Brilliant! So simple!

 

[Nossil]

IMO if you are using liquid wheat yeasts AND desire the banana characteristics to be maintained, yeast rinsing is not the go. I have found that when using rinsed liquid wheat yeast it looses it's ability to produce banana esters but maintains the ability to produce clove phenolics. Some people do not like banana esters and prefer clove phenolics so this would suit them perfectly. I have not tried top cropping a liquid wheat yeast and then subsequent reuse, perhaps this may be a different story? I would split the original liquid wheat yeast into 4 sanitised containers and make a starter from each as required, if you wanted to maintain banana esters in the brews.

This is a simplified account, there are more factors involved than I have discussed.

I'm very new to brewing so I think i will try rinsing the liquid wheat yeast and see a) if it actually works and b.) if I notice the taste difference (lack of banana esters as you explained)


I've looked into splitting yeast vials, but 'stepping up' starters confusing the sh*t out of me. Plus i only have a 1L flask.

 

[Yob]

Here's a new one for me..

Took some yeast off the stirplate yesterday and crashed it overnight.. I knew that this sample was a bit old and may have had some dead old yeast in there so thought Id give it a good swirl from my Starter jar, collect the yeast and then rinse it.

This is the collected yeast from the stirplate jar



It's upside down :blink:

WTF is that all about?.. I can see 150ml of nice yeast and then :blink:

Coldbreak maybe? This was some of the wort I used for the starter



dunno, got me a little stumped.. Thoughts appreciated.

 

[Malted]

Here's a new one for me..

View attachment 56903

dunno, got me a little stumped.. Thoughts appreciated.

Kind of looks a bit like a very small pickled alien

 

[RobjF]

Im going to bottle a batch of IPA that I used wyeast 1056 American Ale. I want to wash the yeast and keep one lot in the fridge for another day, but use some next saturday in a Brown ale. Should I rinse it right out and put it in a starter or just keep it in a flask and pitch it direct to the wort next weekend?

 

[Wolfy]

If you are going to re-use the yeast within a week (maybe even two) I'd just pitch the rinsed-yeast directly and not bother with a starter.

 

[mwd]

Here is a good example of the yeast separation. The gunk at the bottom contains all the hop debris from dry hopping.

 

[DL]

Would it be ok to re-use an ale yeast that has been used to ferment a cider, rinsed and refridgerated as per this thread, to ferment an ale?

By that I mean, is it ok to dramatically change the fermentables from one batch to the next, in this case from fruit juice to malt?

 

[MaltyHops]

The OP says "10 to 15 mins" not 20.
In my "Yeast Rinsing Experiment" I found that after that after about 10 mins the yeast was still in suspension but much of the trub had settled, but at 20mins the yeast had started to settle out also. ...

Any thoughts on whether dead yeast sinks faster than live yeast? THIS and THIS HBT poster seem to think so though it's pretty hard to find any discussions on this.

Interested because if I managed to save 200mL of yeast solids and use it some months later where half of the yeast is dead by putting it into a starter to try to get back 200mL of live yeast - firstly, is it necessary to separate away as much of the dead yeast as possible?

Hence if dead yeast does sink faster, then the yeast could be swirled up in boiled water, wait for the dead yeast to sink first and so separate the live yeast.

 

[Wolfy]

Interested because if I managed to save 200mL of yeast solids and use it some months later where half of the yeast is dead by putting it into a starter to try to get back 200mL of live yeast - firstly, is it necessary to separate away as much of the dead yeast as possible?

The Yeast book suggests another technique for reviving live yeast and separating it from dead yeast.
From memory, it suggests (something like) adding a higher gravity wort to the yeast and then after a time decanting the liquid portion which will contain the live yeast, and leaving the trub which will be dead yeast.