yeast cropping

[fizzypish]

Anyone else part take in this? Every time I brew, I crop the old yeast on bottling day. Leave settle for 20 min, pour off the beer on top and retain the rest in sterile jam jars. Next time I brew, after I finished the mash I squeeze out an extra liter or so from the grain, boil and use to pitch the cropped yeast. I've 2 bottles of Irish stout which I'm eager to taste from my last batch as I used cropped yeast. I'm nearly at the stage where I trust myself enough to make a proper started from cropped yeast. Is it true that you should only crop the same yeast for 2 brews?

[Tom]

Depends on how you're storing it. Leave the beer on the yeast for a few days after terminal gravity (before you rack or bottle) as it gives the yeast chance to build up some reserves. Keep it in the fridge with sterile water as a cover (try and keep as little alcohol and sugar in it), for up to two weeks or so. Make any temperature changes gradual, and you should have a yeast healthy enough for 5 or 6 brews before it starts getting too wacky.

But if you're going that far, you may as well calculate your pitching rates, consider proper aeration, and make sure EVERYTHING is clean.

Yeast - by them boys from Whitelabs is a good book for all this (I'm reading it now, can you tell?)

[fizzypish]

Sounds good. I usually keep it in the fridge for about a month. Your right though, I should invest in some reading material if I'm going to go down that route!

[Metattron]

I wash my yeast after primary and store it in the fridge. Quite a collection now and have used yeast that has been stored for 6 months to make starters successfully.

[Tom]

Wash or rinse, Metatron? Going to try rinsing soon, but it'll be a while before I go to the hassle of acid washing. Maybe I'll just keep a clean fermentor...

[Will_D]

The ONLY reason to do an acid wash is if you suspect a bacterial infection in a unique yeast strain that you NEED to re-use.

The procedure is basically to acid wash the yeast at about pH 2.2. Then let the yeast settle for an hour or two then immediatlkey pitch into a beer or a starter.

[Metattron]

Wash with boiled then cooled water (by that I mean I boil the water and let it cool, to sterilize it). After transferring my beer to secondary, I add about 2l of this water at room temp to the primary. Leave for 30 minutes and pour the milky liquid off to a sterilized demijohn. Leave for a further 30 minutes and pour off the milky liquid again into 3 sterilized jars. Put these in the fridge to settle. After a few days I transfer the yeast to vials. Never done acid washing, and since these are good for 6 months I've not seen the need. I'm on third generation on some and that's as far as I'll go I reckon. 

[Tom]

But if you can divvy up into three vials, 3 gens, thats a good 9 brews from the one original yeast packet.

But then, don't all your beers start to taste the same?

[Metattron]

13 if you stick to 1 yeast but it depends how often you brew! I have about 20 or so different strains now so I can pretty much brew what I want when I want.  I've started buying seasonals and can keep them beyond available dates so next up will be a fermentation chamber to do out of season brews at the correct temperatures!  You get great variation by changing you grain bill, mash temps, mash times, and even fermentation temperature due to the time of year. Many beers can come from a single strain, just experiment. And don't always follow the rules! 

[halite]

Good video here from Chop & Brew that shows you how to wash yeast:

http://chopandbrew.com/2013/03/30/chop-brew-episode-04-washing-yeast-with-don-o/

[Tom]

I only wish I could get one beer to taste similar to the next! You sound like you're going Pro there, Met.

[Metattron]

I get overly particular about weights, times and temps. It must be my CDO. It like OCD but all the letters are arranged in alphabetical order.

[Padraic]

I get overly particular about weights, times and temps. It must be my CDO. It like OCD but all the letters are arranged in alphabetical order.

CDO

I should be a bit more particular about weights times and temps, the Padraic Method is slightly less organised... but then again, that's because I always want a different beer!