Experiment on my counter

[Bowhunter64]

So I tried my hand at washing out some yeast and after it sat in the fridge for a few weeks I figured I'd make a starter and see if it worked and it did perfectly! Now I'm keeping it on the counter as a pet! I feed it once in a while and this weekend after I got done brewing I made some spent grain bread and used that yeast to make it and that worked pretty good too I think unless you intentionally try you can't kill it! Lol

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

great, one thing though be careful how worm that yeast gets on the counter. as time passes worm yeast will get strong flavors

 

[Hogarthe]

It won't die, but it could lose vitality over time. Then when you go to use it, it will ferment slow or not fully ferment the beer. And sanitation is of course important, if a bacteria gets in, it will multiply and ruin your yeast.

 

[jmcnamara]

very nice. i don't do it that often, but reusing / washing the yeast is a great way to save some money on what is arguably the most expensive ingredient and one you can't really buy in bulk.

and to add on to what the others were saying about yeast losing their oomph, i've heard that 4 or 5 generations are about as far as you can push it before the yeast don't really perform as they did originally. i've only done 1 or 2 generations, so no first hand experience on that

But, if you harvest even 4 "vials" of the stuff, then each one of those vials goes on to make 4 more, etc., that's still probably more yeast than you'll use over several months. definitely a good return on investment

 

[Bowhunter64]

I probably won't use the yeast on the counter for beer . I've got 4 more jars in the fridge for that ! I just wanted to see if I did it properly. I will probably use what's on the counter for some bread and I figured I'd only go 2-3 gens on the others. Just a cool little experiment to check my work! Lol

 

[EbonHawk]

Bread made with beer yeast is really interesting! A friend of mine uses his beer yeast to make starters for different breads. They are quite tasty.

@jmcnamara: I know you said 'arguably' but can you explain how the yeast is the most expensive ingredient? I spend way more on grain and hops than I do yeast.

 

[jmcnamara]

You should try bread yeast in beer next

I worded it poorly. I meant that malt and hops can be bought in bulk, I've seen 2row as cheap as 80-90 cent per lb in some cases. Hops could be less than $1 an oz.

Whereas, you can't really buy a big bucket of yeast. So thatsat kind of a constant cost batch to batch. Unless you wash and reuse

Anyway, time to head into the lhbs!

 

[EbonHawk]

Ok, I was wondering.. Makes sense when you talk about cost per ounce, etc.