Top or bottom crop

[rpt]

I've currently got a brew fermenting with the yeast captured from a bottle of Hop Back Summer Lightning. Starter was pitched into the wort on Tuesday night at 23.30 and there has been a nice krausen since Wednesday morning. I've never top cropped before but was thinking of trying it this time. My concern is that I won't be brewing again for almost 2 weeks so will the top cropped yeast survive that long? I've successfully rinsed the yeast from the bottom of the fermentor several times before. The advantage of this is that the time between harvesting and pitching the yeast will be minimal. I know top cropping is the better technique but it's best when you can get a second fermentation going. So, should I top or bottom crop? If I do top crop I was planning to do it on Friday morning (58 hours after pitching) - does that sound right?

 

[Hawks]

Sounds about right to me - I top crop WLP023 when I can. That's usually attempting to escape the FV by about day 3 so is the perfect time. :thumb:

I have brewed with it with no starter after about a month in the fridge with seemingly no adverse effects - although best practice would probably be make a starter at this point. However it was an unplanned brew and if the yeast had been very fresh it would have been hugely over-pitched as I had managed to top crop a lot ( I have at least a foot of headspace in my 70l FV and it has broken free on more than one occasion ) .

 

[Dave1970]

I top cropped some Hop Back yeast a week ago. I dropped it into a small starter (500ml) to up the yeast quantity a bit - if you did this now it would take a week to ferment the starter and would be fine for your next brew. Mine got mixed with water & glycerine and frozen for future use.

 

[rpt]

I've read that top cropped yeast don't store as well as bottom cropped. The explanation I've heard makes sense. When yeast finish fermenting they build up reserves to keep them alive during dormancy. The top cropped yeast never have chance to do that. But I can see the logic of dropping them straight into starter wort so that they can grow and finish fermenting and build up their reserves.

One thing I have notice is that the krausen layer on my 24L brew is no more than about 1cm (in a Young's 25L bucket) which seems to be much smaller than others have reported. I hope there is enough yeast to crop.