First wash

[Donny]

Hey guys,
Tried my hand at washing yeast for the first time. From what I've veiwed online most when the old beer, turb and yeast settlles there are 3 layers with the suppened yeast in the middle.

http://imgur.com/R6me967

Mine doesn't look quite right. Any tips?

[Bubbles]

The ability to separate into layers depends on the yeast strain. Some Belgian strains do this very well, you see very distinct layers after a short amount of time. Other strains, like hard-floccing English strains just settle in one single homogenised layer.

If it was me, I'd be keeping things simple, and pitching the yeast cake.

(Unless, of course, you're pitching from a porter into a lager, where you don't want to carry over flavour..)

[Simon_]

Read this blog and abandon the idea of 'washing' yeast. Make starters with your yeast for better results and overbuild your starter so you can reuse it later

After the yeast has settled into the container it divides into roughly three sections.  Common brewing wisdom indicates that the top portion is mostly water, the light colored middle section contains viable yeast, and the darker bottom contains dead yeast, hops, and other debris.  However, it seems that this in not the case.

The viability throughout the container is roughly the same.

In four test cases the viability was not statistically different in these layers.  Tests were run with three slurries with 10%, 50% and 90% viability.  In all tests the viability of the yeast in each section did not vary more than one standard deviation.

What was interesting was that the bacteriological content was much higher in the top portion of the yeast containers than in the lower parts.  There was about 100 times more bacteria per live yeast cell in the top "liquid" section.

[molc]

Yup, overbuild starters and forget about washing. The only time I use a yeast cake now is when making a big beer on top of a previous batch.

[Kevin O'Roundwood]

If you overbuild your starters how long can you keep them before using them?

[molc]

I think of it as a reset on the vial, so 3 - 4 months. I've resurrected them with 6+ months though, by just making a small growth start first.

[Kevin O'Roundwood]

Cheers molc. And do you just keep them in the fridge in a large vial/jar or do you freeze them?

[Donny]

Well there goes that experiment. Cheers for the info.

[molc]

Cheers molc. And do you just keep them in the fridge in a large vial/jar or do you freeze them?

On overbuild, I decant and then fill the original vial with a sample, before putting the rest in the batch. If I'm not decanting, then I keep ~500ml in a large jar and let it settle, then put it in the vial.