Storing Harvested Yeast Question

[woodie]

Hi all, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all.
Question for you, I have reharvested yeast for a while and stored it for a short time, while getting the next brew ready, the question is how long can it be stored for in the fridge?
Thanks.

 

[warra48]

Depends whether you've just harvested it from the trub and stored it as is, or whether you've washed it to seperate most of the trub out.

I've reused straight out slurry as is for up to 2 weeks. Wouldn't recommend going much longer, but I've not repitched from longer than that without building it back up and proofing it in a starter.

If you've washed the yeast, I'd suggest you read this thread. http://aussiehomebrewer.com/topic/55409-rinsing-yeast-in-pictures/

It's not the only one, but it's good because it has lots of useful pictures to show you.

 

[Danscraftbeer]

I give it 1 month for recycled yeast. 2 months maximum for me but I'm pretty fussy about yeast. Its a critical point of success in home brewing. Fresh is best scenario I go.
Use MrMalty http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html
and any other means of calculating yeast count viability so you get in the ball park confidently.
Recycling yeast is awesome in my experience but consider it has a short shelf life.

 

[Bribie G]

I often keep harvested trub in a lab bottle in the fridge for up to three months. However when using trub that's over around three weeks old, as per Warra I wash it with sterile water, let it settle, take off the yeast layer and bring it back to life as a starter, treating it much as I would Wyeast or WL.

The younger stuff I just tip into the FV, if it's a similar style of beer.

 

[woodie]

Thank you for that. It is not washed but it has been taken off the trub, so it maybe is washed.
It is only the packet yeast from Coopers pale ale kit.

 

[Danscraftbeer]

Coopers yeast is good. Just saying from experimentations. I made great brews in the past with their cultured yeast from their dry packs. Then compared to cultured from their Pale Ale commercial bottled stuff. Brews well with good brewing, yeast calculations and temperature control.

 

[Mardoo]

Interested in freezing yeast? Careful, it's a slippery slope INSIDE the slippery slope of brewing. ******* awesome, and dead simple, as long as your sanitation is good. I love having 10 or more yeasts on hand that I can have to pitching size in a week for ales, sometimes even shorter (lagers can take a bit longer). It was three days from freezer to pitch for the hefeweizen I just did. Another great thing is if you have brewing mates who freeze, you can all swap. Too cool. Pun not intended, but gladly taken.

 

[Midnight Brew]

Too cool. Pun not intended, but gladly taken.

Cool off. We cant have too many puns.

 

[peteru]

I was lazy couple of weeks ago and used about 50mL of Cooper's Sparkling Ale yeast that I collected and rinsed/separated back in September. It was in the kegerator fridge in a sealed jam jar, stored at 4-8C, depending on what was being served. This went into a 5L test batch of 1.078 chocolate rye porter, fermented in a keg under pressure at room temperature. Took off like a rocket and produced excellent results. Fermentation was over quicker than the main batch that went onto US-05 yeast cake.

So, empirical evidence says that even at 4 months, the yeast is still good. But, of course it will depend on the yeast strain and how you handle it.

 

[Yob]

Temperature fluctuations and oxygen are the enemy of fridge stored yeast.

The more stable then temp (and lower) the longer they will last.

Purged PET bottles are the go for storage and will slow reactions further.. But you can't see it as well as glass jars..