Pitching harvested yeast

BilltownBrewingCo

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
Established Member
Joined
Jan 22, 2019
Messages
187
Reaction score
278
Points
63
I should have added some water to wash these yeasts out better. They really haven't separated out much from the trub, and they've been in the fridge 4 weeks.
Attach62220_20190310_204852.jpg

I plan on using the 007 (in the two jars on the left) for a beer I'm brewing Friday. I have some fast pitch I will use as a starter on Wednesday.

How should I go about pitching from these jars? How much should I use?
 
Use https://www.brewersfriend.com/yeast-pitch-rate-and-starter-calculator/ and the slurry option in yeast type. I've used it a few times and it's worked well.

As they've been in the fridge a while it might be worth doing the vitality starter approach. I take about 500 mL of wort as soon as it's cool enough not to break the 2 litre growler I use. Shake the wort until the growler is as full of bubbles as I can get it and add the slurry. Leave it a room temperature covered with sanitised foil for about four hours and then pitch the whole lot. It has the other benefit of giving me plenty of time to cool the wort, get it in the fermentation chamber and temperature stabilised and clean up.

There's a bunch of Bruslosophy experiments on vitality starters where they use low pitching rates in combination with the vitality starter to compare it to a normal built up starter. I haven't tried changing the pitching rate, I just use the approach to make sure the yeast is active after the stretch in the fridge.
 
I'd personally just dump one in and call it a day.
I think that's likely the rout i'm going to end up going. Will be doing a starter wednesday for brew day Friday. Only question is, do I dump the whole shebang, or just half of one?
 
Dump it in as ♤♤hawkbox would say let it rock! I'd have a healthy fermentation over a slumbering one any day.
 
I think that's likely the rout i'm going to end up going. Will be doing a starter wednesday for brew day Friday. Only question is, do I dump the whole shebang, or just half of one?
That would depend on the ABV
 
Until this past weekend, I’ve never harvested yeast as it’s just not a part of brewing that interests me enough to alot the time, equipment or cooling/storage. This past weekend I pitched a Wyeast 1272 that I had created from a snack pack the week before, but we ended up not brewing that weekend.

I initially used the yeast starter calculator on this site as it always produced good results for me, and probably would have done the same had I brewed last weekend. Fast forward one week... the yeast was now a week old and per the calculator on this site, was now a bit short on yeast count due to a week’s yeast loss. (The first yeast starter was barely over what the calculator called for). I re ran the numbers in the calculator and found that I needed a 0.1 quart yeast starter. With it only being slightly under the pitch volume for yeast, I went ahead and pitched it and it is fermenting away now.

I say all of this as there looks like a lot of potential variability that could effect your results. The jars appear to have way more yeast than you need, even though they are a month old. You don’t want to dramatically under under or over pitch your yeast as it can bring on less than desirable outcomes (I’ve only read this as I have not over/under pitched in dramatic fashion (yet)). So unless you can determine within reason, how much yeast you have, I would get a fresh yeast (dry or liquid). But this is my opinion, and remember, I don’t harvest yeast. Nevertheless, no point in ruining a good wort and brewday with a bad yeast decision.
 
Last edited:

Back
Top