Slants From Krausen?

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aaronpetersen

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I think I read somewhere that you can grow yeast from krausen on slants but I can't find any detailed instructions on how to do it. Has anyone had experience with this and, if so, could you please give a step by step guide on how it is done. I know how to make slants, I'm just trying to figure the best way to get the krausen from the fermenter onto the slant.
 
I think I read somewhere that you can grow yeast from krausen on slants but I can't find any detailed instructions on how to do it. Has anyone had experience with this and, if so, could you please give a step by step guide on how it is done. I know how to make slants, I'm just trying to figure the best way to get the krausen from the fermenter onto the slant.

I use a sterilized spoon to collect the "knots" of yeast in the krausen (little blobs of yeast {take some dried yeast and hydrate to see the colour/texture} coloured goo), transfer to a smaller (sterile) sample jar for washing etc. and proceed as per normal.
 
I top crop all the time - all I do is sanitise a stainless steel ladle, funnel and vessel (longneck, tube, erlenmeyer, schott etc). Boil and cool some water, scoop out the fluffy fresh yeast (avoiding crap and gunk) slop that in the funnel and pour some of the water through. Seal and refrigerate.

Note that I'm not really making slants - just harvesting and keeping yeast so if you want to make proper slants you might need to adjust. I work as quickly as I can but firgure the active fermentation keeps the current brew safe.

I have had success directly innoculating a batch with top cropped krausen - this stuff kicks off like nobody's business.

Not a step by step guide so I'm sorry but maybe there's enough info there for you to work one out?
 
It will be nice and healthy yeast too using the top cropped method, hence you should be able to reuse for a longer time without worrying about significant yeast generation change.
 
I would just top crop some krausen as per Manticle's post, then place in the fridge - the yeast will drop to the bottom. Pour off the beery liquid on top and make your slants from the settled yeast.
 
Make sure you taste the starter built up from your slant. If it tastes off, then ditch it and try again.

Proper sterilising of slants, etc should hold you in good stead. The wiki links of yeast farming are good in that regard too.
 
Excuse my ignorance, but how do I know what is yeast and what is gunk? Is the yeast the brown patches sitting on top in this image (not my photo, I stole it off the interweb)
View attachment 38901

Aaron, grab some dried yeast (any type will do) and rehydrate a few grains take a good look at what the colour/texture/goopiness of it is. Now take a look at a brew at high krausen, you will see little areas where the bubbles are smaller/non-existent that look much like the re-hydrated yeast. Those are the bits you REALLY want to collect as they are almost pure yeast, but really almost all the krausen will work just the same.

I had a great example last week but had no reason to take a photo, I'll see if the ESB I put down yesterday has a good example when I get home tonight and take a photo or two if so.
 
as far as making slants goes, there's no advantage to using krausen over the starter as far as i can tell. the krausen sample may finish in the slant sooner as it'd be in log growth phase, but you're trading off for cells that have proliferated more which is not what you want. krausen scooping to me is just a better alternative to re-using yeast cake.
 
[topic="0"]Culturing yeast from a slant[/topic]

This is useful there is also a thread by Blue Dog Brewing that is a good read.
Cheers Altstart
 
Excuse my ignorance, but how do I know what is yeast and what is gunk? Is the yeast the brown patches sitting on top in this image (not my photo, I stole it off the interweb)
Typically the brown patches will be the 'gunk' - break and hop material most likely.
If you remove the darker brown 'gunk' you should be left with the cream-coloured yeast.
Alive/active yeast is usually cream in colour, as it dies it gets darker/brown.
 
I had a great example last week but had no reason to take a photo, I'll see if the ESB I put down yesterday has a good example when I get home tonight and take a photo or two if so.

The ESB has some great examples of what I tried to describe, so I'll take some photos in the morning!
 
Got home last night and my lager (Wyeast 2001) had a beautiful creamy krausen on top. No brown patches or signs of any gunk. I sterilised a ladle and scooped some off into a sterile sample jar with some boiled cooled water and chucked it into the fridge. That was the first time I've touched the krausen and I now have a much better understanding of what you guys are talking about. This morning there was a layer of yeast on the bottom of the sample jar which I'll use for my slants this evening. Just out of curiosity I also put some krausen straight onto a slant to see if anything grows from that.
 
Well, after 5 days there doesn't seem to be any difference between the yeast growth on the slant innoculated straight from the krausen or the one innoculated with the yeast that settled on the bottom of the sample jar. The true test will be when I try to fire them up in starters I guess.
 
The ESB has some great examples of what I tried to describe, so I'll take some photos in the morning!

Damn laziness I should have taken them photos then and there, the next morning the krausen had collapsed..... <_<
 
Well, after 5 days there doesn't seem to be any difference between the yeast growth on the slant innoculated straight from the krausen or the one innoculated with the yeast that settled on the bottom of the sample jar. The true test will be when I try to fire them up in starters I guess.

the krausen would've grown faster on the slant if anything. the actual true test will be to see if there's any difference in the end product. i doubt there would be as you're only talking like half a gen difference between the samples...
 
Well, after 5 days there doesn't seem to be any difference between the yeast growth on the slant innoculated straight from the krausen or the one innoculated with the yeast that settled on the bottom of the sample jar. The true test will be when I try to fire them up in starters I guess.
Since you are harvesting the same yeast - just at a different stage of the fermentation cycle - there is no real reason to expect any differences.
Both will need to get used to the new conditions, both will reproduce to increase cell count, both will ferment the sugars and both will then go into a dormant phase.
It may be that the krausen yeast was more active at the time of harvest but the dormant yeast will have built up glycogen and trehalose reserves that allow them to adapt to the new conditions more readily - so both approaches have advantages - but since you have harvested the same yeast - just under two different conditions - I can't imagine you'd see any noticeable difference that could be measured outside a laboratory.
 
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