help with yeast collecting

[Wonderwoman]

So I collected some yeast last night with clean water etc filled it in three jars and now wanted to proceed bit I struggle to see where the tub is and where the yeast? The big jar had got a thin line in the top but that's it.

Any other lines are down to the jar having got a bevelled area

 

[nbpicklesno2]

Ensure that the jars are at room tempreture, give them a shake and wait about twenty minutes. This will let the trub settle to the bottom (the white milky solids) and suspend the yeast in the brown watery bit at the top. Decant off the watery part and that's your yeast. You may have to do it several times to get rid of all the trub. This is called washing the yeast.

When you've done that, put them in the fridge until three days before you want to brew and make starter with the liquid. When you take them out of the fridge you'll see that the yeast is no longer suspended in the brown watery part but will have fallen (due to the cold in the fridge) to form a layer at the bottom of the jar.

Don't leave the yeast in the water for too long as it's not necessarily good for it as it prefers to be in wort, not water.

 

[Wonderwoman]

Ensure that the jars are at room tempreture, give them a shake and wait about twenty minutes. This will let the trub settle to the bottom (the white milky solids) and suspend the yeast in the brown watery bit at the top. Decant off the watery part and that's your yeast. You may have to do it several times to get rid of all the trub. This is called washing the yeast.

When you've done that, put them in the fridge until three days before you want to brew and make starter with the liquid. When you take them out of the fridge you'll see that the yeast is no longer suspended in the brown watery part but will have fallen (due to the cold in the fridge) to form a layer at the bottom of the jar.

Don't leave the yeast in the water for too long as it's not necessarily good for it as it prefers to be in wort, not water.

Ah maybe that's where I went wrong as I put it in the fridge overnight. Okay, I'll give it a good shake.

 

[nbpicklesno2]

You won't necessarily see the yeast but it will be suspended in the watery bit.

 

[clibit]

I don't add water. I leave some beer at the bottom of the FV (not a lot) and mix that in with the sediment. I like to leave the yeast in it's natural environmnt.

 

[MyQul]

Water is not good for rinsing your yeast with because it's by no means sterile and can infect your brew- even if you boil the water the bacteria spores will survive. The only way to sterilize water is with a pressure cooker/autoclave.

You've obviuosly got shed loads of trub there. This happens to me too, as a no chiller I just chuck everything in the FV (except the hops which I pass through a seive to remove)

He's what I do, which works really well: Make up 2L of starter wort (200g DML/2L water - simmer for 15 mins to sanitise). Get a 5L water bottle and put the two litres of starter wort in it and half of the middle jar of trub. Give it a good shake for about a minute to aerate then leave at room temp for a couple of days to ferment out. Every time you pass by you can give the bottle a shake and remember to let the C02 out too.

When its fermeted out give it a shake and leave it for 20 mins. You see all the heavy trub fall the the bottom quickly and the yeast will be in suspension in the spent wort. Decant the suspended yeast in the spent wort into a 2L water bottle leaving the sediment/trub behind. Then put it in your fridge.

This method has the double advantage of keeping you yeast under beer rather than water wich is much better for it and aso growing more yeast.

I usuall decant into 2 x 2L pop bottles rather than 1. With the first one, 12 hours before pitching I decant the spent wort off put another 1L of fresh wort in there then pitch at high krausen. With the second one I put it into another 2L of wort in the 5L water bottle, ferment out then split in two again etc, etc. From what I've read people have done this 'overbuilding' spliting then pitching 13 times or more

 

[mirsultankhan]

I don't know if this is the place for it but can anyone tell me why people say dry yeast is not good for collecting so that it can be reused because it appears to me to have little scientific value. For example,

As a result of the drying process,
Mangrove Jack’s dried yeasts are
not suitable for harvesting and/or
repitching. For best results, always
use a fresh sachet of yeast with
every brew.

https://shop.brewcraftusa.com/img/product/description/Craft_Series_Yeast.pdf

 

[MyQul]

I don't know if this is the place for it but can anyone tell me why people say dry yeast is not good for collecting so that it can be reused because it appears to me to have little scientific value. For example,

As a result of the drying process,
Mangrove Jack’s dried yeasts are
not suitable for harvesting and/or
repitching. For best results, always
use a fresh sachet of yeast with
every brew.

https://shop.brewcraftusa.com/img/product/description/Craft_Series_Yeast.pdf

I call BS on that! Oh, of course you can't harvest our dry yeast(which won't cost you anything), so you have to buy more of it for your next brew.

That's the first time I've heard that in conjunction with dried yeast. I've repitched their work horse yeast trub before, no problem and the above method I detailed is what I use on dry yeast as I haven't started using liquid yeasts yet and (for me at least) works exceptionally well

 

[nbpicklesno2]

I did thirteen brews with one packet of Danstar Nottingham. It had mutated by the end but that was the only reason I stopped using it.

 

[MyQul]

I did thirteen brews with one packet of Danstar Nottingham. It had mutated by the end but that was the only reason I stopped using it.

Was that pitching trub from brew to brew? My method above is cobbled together from various stuff I've read across the interweb. The overbuilding bit is from brulosophy who has gone to 13 generations too but with no noticable detrimental effect up till the 12th gen

http://brulosophy.com/methods/yeast-harvesting/ (the first Q in the F.A.Q at the bottom of the page)

 

[nbpicklesno2]

It was from the trub but it was washed each time, usually made into a starter, so at least I would know how much I was pitching.

 

[Covrich]

Water is not good for rinsing your yeast with because it's by no means sterile and can infect your brew- even if you boil the water the bacteria spores will survive. The only way to sterilize water is with a pressure cooker/autoclave.

You've obviuosly got shed loads of trub there. This happens to me too, as a no chiller I just chuck everything in the FV (except the hops which I pass through a seive to remove)

He's what I do, which works really well: Make up 2L of starter wort (200g DML/2L water - simmer for 15 mins to sanitise). Get a 5L water bottle and put the two litres of starter wort in it and half of the middle jar of trub. Give it a good shake for about a minute to aerate then leave at room temp for a couple of days to ferment out. Every time you pass by you can give the bottle a shake and remember to let the C02 out too.

When its fermeted out give it a shake and leave it for 20 mins. You see all the heavy trub fall the the bottom quickly and the yeast will be in suspension in the spent wort. Decant the suspended yeast in the spent wort into a 2L water bottle leaving the sediment/trub behind. Then put it in your fridge.

This method has the double advantage of keeping you yeast under beer rather than water wich is much better for it and aso growing more yeast.

I usuall decant into 2 x 2L pop bottles rather than 1. With the first one, 12 hours before pitching I decant the spent wort off put another 1L of fresh wort in there then pitch at high krausen. With the second one I put it into another 2L of wort in the 5L water bottle, ferment out then split in two again etc, etc. From what I've read people have done this 'overbuilding' spliting then pitching 13 times or more

So you do a starter after harvesting and a small one prior to pitching?

I am just thinking about what I should do as I will probably do this myself.. at the moment I am crashing the beer so hopefully that will allow more yeast to drop out as I have a lot of hop debris (it was an IPA so lots of hops).

Dont mind doing a starter both ends but ultimatley I will look to keep costs down longer term as dme isn't the cheapest.. (probably me being a tight wad).. or maybe when I order grain bills add 300grams on to make a small wort.. if I can be arsed

 

[nbpicklesno2]

I will look to keep costs down longer term as dme isn't the cheapest

I tend to run off half a litre or so of wort from every mash (there's always about that amount at be bottom of the mash tun) boil it for 10 mins and store it in the shed ready for starters.

 

[MyQul]

So you do a starter after harvesting and a small one prior to pitching?

I am just thinking about what I should do as I will probably do this myself.. at the moment I am crashing the beer so hopefully that will allow more yeast to drop out as I have a lot of hop debris (it was an IPA so lots of hops).

Dont mind doing a starter both ends but ultimatley I will look to keep costs down longer term as dme isn't the cheapest.. (probably me being a tight wad).. or maybe when I order grain bills add 300grams on to make a small wort.. if I can be arsed

Yes, I do do a starter after harvesting and then another prior to pitching for the following reasons:

For the starter after harvesting; Because I no chill I get a lot of trub when I harvest because I just chuck everything (all the hot break material), apart from the hop debris which I remove by passing through a seive, into the FV. So when it comes to harvesting there a LOT of break material/trub mixed in with the yeast which needs to be rinsed out. As I've mentioned, using water to rinse is not good. So the 2L starter I make once Its fermented out acts as a rinsing medium, as detailed above in post 6.
Because I'm going to split this 2L starter into two, to pitch one split then regrow the second split for splitting and repitching again, I only ever need to harvest a strain once

If you don't get a lot of trub in the bottom of you FV, because you've whirlpooled in your kettle and left all the break material behind, you don't have to make a starter (and therefore save money on DME). All you do is, after you've racked off your beer and with the small amount of beer that is inevitably left in the FV, give the FV a gentle swirl to resuspend everything in that small amount of beer. Then leave it for 20 mins for the trub to settle out. Leaving the yeast in suspension. Then decant about 400ml of that beer/yeast suspention into a sanitsied jar and put in you fridge. This yeast is good for pitiching alone for up to 2-3 weeks. After that it's advisable to make a starter.
So to be clear you only need to make a starter if you get a lot of trub (or if using the harvested yeast after more than 2-3 weeks)

For the starter prior to pitching; I make a 1L starter 12 hours before I pitch yeast. The reason I do this is because I want to pitch my yeast at high krausen. This gives super healthy yeast and a short lag time (so my turn around of beer production is short).
There's debate across the forums on when you should pitch your yeast when making a starter. Some people say pitch at high krausen some people ferment there starter out completely, crash it, decant the spent wort off then pitch.
Again, if your looking to save money on DME, you don't need to make a starter prior to pitching. You can harvest your yeast and as long as you use it withing 2 to 3 weeks you can pitch it without a starter.

However starters have there advantages (especially the one before pitching).

* It get the yeast into a vital/healthy (and viable/less dead cell in any one population) state.
*You can know how much your pitching (this is espeically true if you have loads of trub in your harvested yeast)

Also If you simply pitch from brew to brew and you pitch an infection which is slow burning, like wild yeast can be, you'll pitch it into one or more subsequent brews until you notice (which is what I've done before). This is another reason why I do the first 2L starter. As I split it in two pitch one split then regrow the other split to split again. If I'm starting from a base of no infection this eliminates any possiblity of repitching an infection (albeit the chances of doing this are quite small if your cleaning routine is good - although I have done this twice now) and I can keep doing this splitting pitching and resplitting up to13 generations, possibly more. In fact I a pretty certain it's possible to get about 70 brews out of 1 White labs/Wyeast vial by splitting and overbuilding

So basically you don't have to use any DME if you use your yeast withing a couple of weeks of harvesting

 

[mirsultankhan]

I call BS on that! Oh, of course you can't harvest our dry yeast(which won't cost you anything), so you have to buy more of it for your next brew.

That's the first time I've heard that in conjunction with dried yeast. I've repitched their work horse yeast trub before, no problem and the above method I detailed is what I use on dry yeast as I haven't started using liquid yeasts yet and (for me at least) works exceptionally well

Yes as I also suspected. Why the drying process would make yeast not be suitable to harvesting they have not said and I doubt there is any scientific evidence for their claim, because as you stated, you have used it with success! Thus providing empirical evidence that their claim is hollow.

 

[mirsultankhan]

Was that pitching trub from brew to brew? My method above is cobbled together from various stuff I've read across the interweb. The overbuilding bit is from brulosophy who has gone to 13 generations too but with no noticable detrimental effect up till the 12th gen

http://brulosophy.com/methods/yeast-harvesting/ (the first Q in the F.A.Q at the bottom of the page)

That is the method I also use, make more starter than I need and simply place some aside for the next brew. Currently I'm only on my third generation, the second generation one was awesome, it got a relatively high wort 1062 down to 1012 in about a week.

 

[mirsultankhan]

I did thirteen brews with one packet of Danstar Nottingham. It had mutated by the end but that was the only reason I stopped using it.

wow that's interesting I don't know if I could recognise the signs of mutation. What made it mutate, was it exposure to UV light?

 

[MyQul]

wow that's interesting I don't know if I could recognise the signs of mutation. What made it mutate, was it exposure to UV light?

His yeast grew huge and then destroyed a Japanese city :lol:

This is nb's thread on his mutant yeast

http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=54666&highlight=retire

As you'll see from the thread, because he was constantly bottom cropping he put selective pressures on it to only harvest the most flocculant cells. It therefore became less attenuative due to high flocculancy.

If your making a bigger starter then splitting it, pitching half then making another bigger starter from that and splitting it again, the above won't/shouldn't happen because your always growing, harvesting, and pitching all the yeast cells not just the most flocculant ones

 

[mirsultankhan]

His yeast grew huge and then destroyed a Japanese city :lol:

This is nb's thread on his mutant yeast

http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=54666&highlight=retire

As you'll see from the thread, because he was constantly bottom cropping he put selective pressures on it to only harvest the most flocculant cells. It therefore became less attenuative due to high flocculancy.

If your making a bigger starter then splitting it, pitching half then making another bigger starter from that and splitting it again, the above won't/shouldn't happen because your always growing, harvesting, and pitching all the yeast cells not just the most flocculant ones

Yes although I don't split it 50/50. I do a 1.5 litre starter and keep .5 litres for my next brew in a little 500ml bottle and pitch the yeast from the 1 litre. I found that using brewers friend yeast calculation the very minimum one should pitch is a .8 litre starter for a 23 litre batch of 1050 wort.

 

[MyQul]

Yes although I don't split it 50/50. I do a 1.5 litre starter and keep .5 litres for my next brew in a little 500ml bottle and pitch the yeast from the 1 litre. I found that using brewers friend yeast calculation the very minimum one should pitch is a .8 litre starter for a 23 litre batch of 1050 wort.

I don't like Brewers Fiend yeast calc as I find it far to conservative, at least for dried yeast -it tells you to pitch, very obviously, far more yeast than you need.