Simple question. Can you harvest the yeast off the bottom of a secondary carboy or does it have to be from your primary? There looks to be a nice 3/4" layer of yeast on the bottom of my secondary.
Yes, it's possible to harvest from secondary. But some people will recommend the primary. Here's a pretty good discussion on the topic: http://billybrew.com/yeast-washing
Secondary is fine. It sounds like you may have a pretty good crop. It'll be cleaner (less trub) than yeast that you would have collected from primary, and it's obviously no older (not that that really matters on this scale). The only real downside is that this yeast was in suspension longer, meaning it'll likely be less flocculant than yeast collected from primary. That may or may not be an issue for you.
The billybrew site is great thanks for the tip. Seems like a bit of work but the wife is giving me the stink eye about costs of our awesome hobby. So of course I am going to spend the $$ to go all grain. Savings in the long run!
Washing yeast is really pretty easy. What's another hour tacked on after racking your beer? Plus it's mostly time spent waiting for the nasties to separate from the yeasties . . . an ideal time to sip a brew. So when the wife complains about all these mason jars taking over your fridge, reminder her whose idea it was to reduce costs.
