Is this all trub?

[marshbrewer]

When putting my Golden Ale into the keg, I left 2L at the bottom of the FV, sanitised the top of it where all the crud was, swirled it all around and poured it out into the container below. There was some stuff actually stuck to the bottom of the FV after swilling, so that got left behind. This was yesterday, and since then it's been in my Kegorator at 5°C. I was expecting stratification, with a layer of trub, then some yeast, then beery liquid. But I'm not seeing any layers so do you think the stuff stuck to the bottom of the FV was yeast that I've unintentionally left behind? If so, there wasn't very much of it. In the other hand, if that's all yeast in the jar, where has all the trub gone? I'm confused. The yeast was cultured up from a few bottles of wye valley butty Bach. What do people think?

 

[MyQul]

I've read the butty bach strain is very flocculant. So many not of stratified. To me, that all looks like yeast. . Did you rack the wort off the trub and leave the trub behind in the kettle or just chuck everything in the FV?

 

[dwhite60]

No matter how cold that is, vent the lid occassionally to assure it's not building up pressure. Even ale yeasts in my fridge at 40F still work some. S-04, US-05, Coopers Ale yeast, all of them.

 

[marshbrewer]

Racked it of the trub and left most of it behind but after couple of days in the FV, I still got a layer of gubbins on the bottom as the wort wasn't totally clear as it went into the FV.

 

[marshbrewer]

No matter how cold that is, vent the lid occassionally to assure it's not building up pressure. Even ale yeasts in my fridge at 40F still work some. S-04, US-05, Coopers Ale yeast, all of them.

Will do, I only closed the lid properly tonight, just had it resting closed till then. I'll probably release the seal every day to let any gas escape.

 

[MyQul]

Racked it of the trub and left most of it behind but after couple of days in the FV, I still got a layer of gubbins on the bottom as the wort wasn't totally clear as it went into the FV.

Then I would say it's 80%-90% yeast. When I no-chill, I no-chill my 10L in two 5L FV's. Then the following day I decant the wort off the break material. I end up with mostly (at a guess 80%-90%) yeast in the FV with very little break material. If I harvest the yeast after fermentation what I end up with looks like what you have in your jar. So I would say that is mostly yeast

 

[marshbrewer]

Yay! That's good to know. Do you always use a starter when reusing, or just pitch loads of yeast?

 

[MyQul]

Yay! That's good to know. Do you always use a starter when reusing, or just pitch loads of yeast?

Depends how long the yeast has been in my fridge. If its less than two weeks I'll just pitch loads of yeast. Longer and I'll make a starter. Tbh, nowadays I prefer to make a starter using dry yeast and not re-use trub

 

[foxy]

View attachment 25125

When putting my Golden Ale into the keg, I left 2L at the bottom of the FV, sanitised the top of it where all the crud was, swirled it all around and poured it out into the container below. There was some stuff actually stuck to the bottom of the FV after swilling, so that got left behind. This was yesterday, and since then it's been in my Kegorator at 5°C. I was expecting stratification, with a layer of trub, then some yeast, then beery liquid. But I'm not seeing any layers so do you think the stuff stuck to the bottom of the FV was yeast that I've unintentionally left behind? If so, there wasn't very much of it. In the other hand, if that's all yeast in the jar, where has all the trub gone? I'm confused. The yeast was cultured up from a few bottles of wye valley butty Bach. What do people think?

View attachment 25122

Looks like you did a good job of leaving the break material and hops in the kettle, can't see any strata so maybe you have left the dead yeast cells in the fermenter.

 

[Edison]

Yeah, that looks like a good amount of live (pale) yeast with minimal trub mixed in possibly, don’t think there would be any problem pitching the whole thing into your next batch within a few weeks.

I ended up with a very similar thing last brew. Because of lockdown I decided to split the grain that was to be used for an AIPA to make two beers instead. The first was a 3.5% simple mild (using US-05 as it was all I had). I dumped 500ml into a Kilner jar from the bottom of the Chronical just before racking and it settled out just like that. I left as much trub as possible in the kettle. For the next beer I made an American Pale and just decanted the old beer off, added fresh wort so I could shake and re-suspend the yeast. O2, pitch and we were off bubbling within hours!

I was going to reuse it again, but in my haste I dry hopped the American before collecting the yeast. What I collected before racking looked more like 90% hops all mixed in, so it went down the drain. At least it wasn’t anything exotic!