Saving yeast

[proost]

My first attempt at saving yeast. It's from a wheat beer using WB-06, all grain.
I've seen photos of saving yeast but they all seem to have 3 layers, whereas mine has obviously got 2. It was a 12l batch and after racking into secondary fv, I just swirled around the trub at the bottom and dumped it in the container.
Any ideas?

 

[strange-steve]

Don't worry too much about layers. If you wanted to rinse the yeast then you'd want to try separating layers but it's not a necessary step.

When you want to reuse the yeast you have two options. The easy option is to just pour the liquid off the top and add a couple of hundred ml of the slurry to your wort. The second (probably better) option is to take a smaller amount of the slurry and add it to a starter medium. This will give you healthier yeast with less trub in it, plus it'll give you an opportunity to check for contamination.

 

[proost]

Don't worry too much about layers. If you wanted to rinse the yeast then you'd want to try separating layers but it's not a necessary step.

When you want to reuse the yeast you have two options. The easy option is to just pour the liquid off the top and add a couple of hundred ml of the slurry to your wort. The second (probably better) option is to take a smaller amount of the slurry and add it to a starter medium. This will give you healthier yeast with less trub in it, plus it'll give you an opportunity to check for contamination.

Thanks for that. How do I make a starter medium?

 

[strange-steve]

Add boiling water to 100g of dry malt extract to make up to a little over 1L, add a pinch of yeast nutrient if you have it, boil for 10 mins, cool to 20°, pour into a sanitised kilner jar or large bottle (the bigger the better) add the yeast, give it a good shake, loosen the lid a little to prevent pressure build up, leave for a couple of days to ferment out, shaking as often as possible during.

There's more detailed instructions here: How to Make a Yeast Starter

 

[Galena]

This is my favourite VIDEO on making a starter and putting by some for a later day.

 

[trueblue]

If you add cooled boiled water to the trub before swirling round it will help in separating into layers.

 

[proost]

Add boiling water to 100g of dry malt extract to make up to a little over 1L, add a pinch of yeast nutrient if you have it, boil for 10 mins, cool to 20°, pour into a sanitised kilner jar or large bottle (the bigger the better) add the yeast, give it a good shake, loosen the lid a little to prevent pressure build up, leave for a couple of days to ferment out, shaking as often as possible during.

There's more detailed instructions here: How to Make a Yeast Starter

Thanks for the info