Another washing yeast thread (with pics)

[Ó Flannagáin]

OK, I was washing yeast yesterday and decided to take some photos. I figure there can never be too many examples to help see what's going on. So here are mine:

Pic 1: After siphoning my beer into secondary, I poured around a liter of water into the original bucket/carboy and swirled it around. Then I poured that into my container (the thing with the dog bones on it). That container had been properly cleaned and sanitized. You will see clearly in this picture what happens after about 30 or 45 minutes in the fridge. The yeast is slowly dropping out of suspension whereas the trub has already collected at the bottom.

Pic 2: After taking the first picture, I poured about half of the cloudy top part into two mason jars (sanitized) and sealed them and put them in the fridge, then I put the rest that was left in the container in first pic back into the fridge. The following day (after 20ish hours in the fridge) you can see almost pure yeast in the mason jars that has dropped completely out of suspension.

Pic 3: I could've dumped all of it into 3 or 4 mason jars, but I decided to just leave some in the fridge since I would be using it today. You can see a clear seperation in this pic of the yeast and the trube after 20+ hours in the fridge.


Pic 1:


Pic 2:


Pic 3:

[BeerBilly]

Nice job Flan.That cleared up a few questions i had.

[Ó Flannagáin]

On a side note. I may or may not make a starter with the yeast in the mason jars. It's a lot of yeast and very ready to start eating again. I WILL DECANT most of the beer/liquid off the top of the yeast though, and leave just a little to swirl the yeast up and pour into my fermenter.

[DrunkenSatyr]

Great photos!

[ohiobrewtus]

I just washed some WLP007 this weekend. It's a great way to save a few bucks on specialty strains.

[WOP31]

I would still make a starter just due to the fact that some of that is still going to be protiens and such, plus not all of the yeast cells will be viable. Great photo's though, really put together well. I have a couple of ideas for putting together a Yeast propigation thread on how to make 12 first gen yeast starters out of one vial/smack pack. I need to get together all the equipment first (ie the proper bungs for 12oz bottles and airlocks).

[Redweasel]

Just washed the yeast from my last batch. I never thought to try it before. I was going to just pitch on the cake, because I forgot to pick up a new packet this week, but it was a darker amber beer and the pale I'm brewing tomorrow is pretty light in color. Thanks for the step by step. It went real easy and faster than I thought. I may just keep doing this for the next couple of batches.

[Steve Urquell]

Originally Posted by Ó Flannagáin

Pic 1: After siphoning my beer into secondary, I poured around a liter of water into the original bucket/carboy and swirled it around.


]

When doing this are you suspending the entire yeast cake or just swirling the water around the top of the cake?

[Evan!]

Originally Posted by Steve Urquell

When doing this are you suspending the entire yeast cake or just swirling the water around the top of the cake?

The whole thing.

[Steve Urquell]

Originally Posted by Evan!

The whole thing.

Cool.Gonna save some of my w34 cake when I rack to secondary this wkend.