washed yeast...help 2 layers!

[taeanbrewer]

I recently brewed a sweet stout and used 2 packets of s-04 yeast. I decided to try and save the yeast as it worked out beautifully to try in another dark beer. I had 3 jars full of the shaken yeast cake with around 1ltr of added water at room temp. I placed it in the fridge and could only see 2 layers. A very very black layer which I couldn't tell if it was beer or yeast and trub at the bottom. I poured all the black layer into my large jar and threw out the trub. I since put that jar (1L) in the fridge and it is nearly full with a small amount of trub on the bottom and Is again just 2 layers of black and trub. I smelt it and it smells yeasty as in an ester kind of smell.

Am I right to use this? Or have I collected mainly beer? The yeast had high flocculation so is it maybe in the trub i threw out??

 

[GrumpyPaul]

Pictures will help the yeasty gurus answer your question

 

[Yob]

It's much harder to rinse yeast if it's cold.. Piccies will inde d help

 

[taeanbrewer]

Here is a photo. It is sitting in my kegerator at 5 degrees

 

[taeanbrewer]

Hopefully this photo comes up

 

[Yob]

let it warm up to ambient and try again, rinsing while cold isn't easy or as effective.

Yeast from darker beers will be dark, it becomes easier if you let it drop and replace the beer with cooled boiled water so you can see what's going on

 

[luggy]

From the look of that photo the yeast is the brown stuff on the bottom and the black stuff is beer.

 

[Camo6]

I'd be pouring the darker beer off the top and topping up with sterile water. Then you can mix it all up and let sit for maybe 5-10 mins. The trub should settle a lot quicker than the yeast and you can pour the water/yeast mix into another jar. But it kinda sounds like you turfed most of the yeast/trub in your first step.