I washed my yeast for the first time today. I ended up with three 16 oz mason jars that look pretty much like the one in the attached picture. Is this the way I store them? Do I need to decant the fluid on top of the lower layer of yeast or do I do that right before I make my starter.
How do I know how many yeast cells there are before making the starter? In other words how much do I pitch for a 2.5 gallon batch.
Does my yeast washing result look like it should?
Thanks. It always hard the first time and then it seems so easy after you do it once of twice.
Looks pretty good but I like to fill the jars so that there's no empty space in them. I boil water for 15 minutes then chill in the fridge and fill the remainder of the jar with clean water all the way to the top.
I'm just guessing but it looks like you have more than enough yeast without a big starter or you can use half of that in a starter. I always make a bigger starter than needed.
Of course, if you store it a long time, you'll definitely need a starter. If used in the next month, you can probably just warm up to room temperature and decant the beer on top and pitch the whole thing.
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As I'm kegging or bottling a five gallon batch of my beer I boil about a gallon of water and let it cool to the yeast's temperature. Once nearly all of the beer is off the yeast I pour the gallon of water into the fermentor and stir it for a few minutes. Using the spigot on the fermentor I fill a sanitized one gallon glass jar with this yeast slurry. Next I screw on the lid and I cover it with plastic wrap and two elastic bands and set it in the refrigerator for 3 days.
ecy12wlp007-sml.jpg (99 KiB) Viewed 961 times
The picture shows the differences between ECY-12 yeast and WLP-007 yeast, how on the left the ECY-12 is layered on top of the trub and on the right how the more floculant WLP-007 has layered beneath the trub. After 3 days even the least floculant yeast cells have settled to the bottom of the jar and I use a baster to suck up the yeast and push it into small vials or jars for long term storage.
ECY-10-4-sml.jpg (56.55 KiB) Viewed 961 times
As for estimating the cell count I just store the yeast in vials or bottles that came with prior yeast purchases and eye them up. An average vial of WLP-007 holds about 100 billion cells and if my stored vials look like they have half the concentrated yeast cells I'll put two of mine into a two liter starter. Using this method I managed to brew for an entire year pitching yeast I bought from a single bottle of ECY-12 that I washed and made starters for 12 months. The only reason I stopped using this yeast was I had to move out of our house and would have no place to store it all. I was sad to see them go, kind of like losing a favorite pet fish or something like that or I'd still be fermenting my beer with them.
Last edited by ScrewyBrewer on Sun Apr 27, 2014 7:43 am, edited 1 time in total.
Thanks for the replies and advice.
When I boiled the gallon of water I only gave it about 5 minutes. Do you think I will still be ok? I have read that you can do a " smell test" as a final check.
I might use this yeast on Tuesday for an APA. It is London 1968. I know it's not exactly in style. I also have US 0-5 on hand. I might just go with that yeast. It does fit the style better.
Banjo-guy wrote:Thanks for the replies and advice.
When I boiled the gallon of water I only gave it about 5 minutes. Do you think I will still be ok? I have read that you can do a " smell test" as a final check.
I think 5 minutes should do it using clear water from a reliable source. I boil mine a bit longer, more like 10 minutes, and leave the lid slightly offset on the pot until its cooled off. It takes longer to cool down but there's less chance of anything floating or flying into the inside of the pot that way. I haven't heard of smelling water as being a reliable sanitization check though it's an interesting concept.
Banjo-guy wrote:Thanks for the replies and advice.
When I boiled the gallon of water I only gave it about 5 minutes. Do you think I will still be ok? I have read that you can do a " smell test" as a final check.
I think 5 minutes should do it using clear water from a reliable source. I boil mine a bit longer, more like 10 minutes, and leave the lid slightly offset on the pot until its cooled off. It takes longer to cool down but there's less chance of anything floating or flying into the inside of the pot that way. I haven't heard of smelling water as being a reliable sanitization check though it's an interesting concept.
Banjo-guy wrote:Thanks for the replies and advice.
When I boiled the gallon of water I only gave it about 5 minutes. Do you think I will still be ok? I have read that you can do a " smell test" as a final check.
I think 5 minutes should do it using clear water from a reliable source. I boil mine a bit longer, more like 10 minutes, and leave the lid slightly offset on the pot until its cooled off. It takes longer to cool down but there's less chance of anything floating or flying into the inside of the pot that way. I haven't heard of smelling water as being a reliable sanitization check though it's an interesting concept.
I actually meant smelling the yeast.
Ha, good one! I agree if you're yeast has gone south it'll stink really bad, it's a smell you'll never forget or want to remember.
