Quick yeast washing / reusing question. I finally had the desire to reuse yeast, so as I went to bottle two batches this past week that stayed in the primary fermentor the entire time I figured it would be a good opportunity. After siphoning out the beer I dumped the yeast and trub into a sterilized mason jar as read in articles / seen on youtube. However, both times the trub and yeast failed to separate in room temperature and cold crashing in the fridge. Any experts have any advice?
Supposedly its the thin almost white line in the sediment. I read an article where there are live yeast cells in all of that mess. I dont separate , when ive got washed yeast ready to re use , I take it out of the fridge the morning that im brewing. When it warms up it will become active. I add about two oz of my wort or you could make a ''starter'' of lme or dme. By the time your ready to pitch , that stuff will be climbing out of the jar. Ive done this several times , worked great.
No expert here, but this is the technique I use: http://homebrewacademy.com/yeast-washing When you say you "empty into a mason jar" . . . are you just pouring off enough trub to fill one mason jar? It sounds like you may be skipping a step. I mix a gallon of sterilized water (see link), allow it to settle, then pour into 4 -5 mason jars (16 ouncers). Ideally you are leaving the majority of non-yeast particles behind. After letting the initial 1 gallon jar settle for about 25 minutes the four lines described in the video are pretty obvious. I carefully pour off enough to fill 4 - 5 mason jars which are refrigerated. In about 2 days that you have a solid layer of yeast on the bottom. I go at least a week, sometimes two, then consolidate the mason jars. It's common to collect 60 to 80 ml of dense slurry. I estimate 2B (?) cells/ml, so this is some serious quantities. The middle shelf of my fridge is lined with these guys.
I didn't with the first batch of yeast, I had read if you leave enough beer behind it wasn't necessary. However I did do this yesterday with my second batch, but it still didn't work. I may just have to put my dry hop pellets in a hop bag so they don't get mixed in with the yeast as much.
Yeast washing: - Add small volume of sterile cold water to fermentor. - Swirl-ify. Chill awhile. - Transfer swirl-ified trub from fermentor into sanitized container. - Put sanitized container with swirl-ified trub in the fridge - Bad trub settle on the bottom; good stuff floats on top. - Decant good stuff floating on top into another sanitized container. - Add small volume of sterile cold water to initial sanitized container. - Swirl-ify. Chill awhile. - Transfer swirl-ified trub from initial sanitized container into second sanitized container. Two iterations are usually enough but not always.
FWIW, I don't shy away from using a little trub in my next batch. I try to get all of the good stuff on the top (yeast) and some of the trub from the bottom is ok too. I know many brewers that package yeast and trub directly from their fermenter into 12 oz bottles. They open the bottles and make starters from this.
I wouldn't really care too much about getting some trub in there http://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/finally-a-trub-vs-no-trub-experiment.192854/ http://www.port66.co.uk/impact-including-trub-fermenter-end-beer/
What Herb said. Use a gal size container to pour it off in and add water. Then chill for an hr. Thin dark crap on the very bottom, trub. Next layer of brown and or greeenish crap, just that crap. whitish stuff floating above that is the good stuff. Above that is just spent beer. Pour off the spent beer into the drain. Then the milky white stuff into the cannng jars. Depend on what I pulled the yeast off of I may wash it 3 or 4 times to clean it up. ALWAYS make a starter from the yeast you harvested. you want it in great shape before pitching. My beers start bubbling away in a few hours after pitching. Healthy yeast is the key. Good luck and keep it clean Jay
