Simple way to wash yeast?

Rudibrew

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Hi guys.
I'm going to be bottling a blonde this afternoon.
It's the first time I used the yeast and would like to wash(?) it for future brewing.
Getting some conflicting research so please advise.
I'm leaning to adding a liter of sterile water to the trub,leaving it for a hour in the fridge and then use the liquid ontop of the trub as the harvested yeast.
Am I right?
Thanks for any advice.
 
Some do that. I don't. If I have to add water because it's thick sludge, I will, but otherwise I just pour the yeast cake into sanitized containers and put them in the fridge. You're not "washing" the yeast when you add water and decant- yeast washing involves acid. You're rinsing it it. Either way, it'll be fine.
 
great,approximately how much of the sludge would i pitch to a 10 liter(2.6gal) fermentor?
 
I'm with Yooper here, There's generally enough beer remaining after transferring to liquify the yeast cake enough to pour, if not, a bit of sterile water works too. Between 1/4 and 1/3 of the yeast cake is pretty normal for repitching.
 
Simple method I followed was fill a 500ml mason jar with liquid and just pitch the whole thing in next time.
 
I have "rescued" the yeast from my last brew and, after topping up with bottled water, have kept it in the fridge since. The question is, how long will it last like that? Does it have to be used within a few days or will 6 weeks kill it all off. I brewed at the end of July so the yeast is sitting there waiting for my next attempt at a lager - it was a Kolsh variety and I want to try that in a lager style in my next but one brew - if it has survived that is.
 
I have "rescued" the yeast from my last brew and, after topping up with bottled water, have kept it in the fridge since. The question is, how long will it last like that? Does it have to be used within a few days or will 6 weeks kill it all off. I brewed at the end of July so the yeast is sitting there waiting for my next attempt at a lager - it was a Kolsh variety and I want to try that in a lager style in my next but one brew - if it has survived that is.
good question,how long can it last in the fridge
 
good question,how long can it last in the fridge
I, like Yooper, have just been chucking my harvested lager yeast in the fridge. I was really worried about the first jar of slurry, 'cause it sat in the fridge for 3 months before I brewed again. So, I pepped it up a bit on the stir-plate with a 1.5L-ish starter, and it went off gang-busters! :cool:
 
i pitched a cup of slurry to a 10l pilsen i brewed saturday.
that airlock started chugging away 3 hours later,pretty quick,stopped this evening
 
i remove the slurry from fridge,let it sit till reach room temp and pitch in cooled wort.
guess thats correct then?
 
Yup that will work fine. Slurry life expectancy is a bit of black magic but 6 weeks is fine in my opinion.
 
i remove the slurry from fridge,let it sit till reach room temp and pitch in cooled wort.
guess thats correct then?
Sounds good to me...not even sure if you needed to wait for it to warm to room temp.
 
I pitch starters and slurries right out of my 40 degree yeast fridge into wort in the mid 60s. Almost always see active fermentation within 8 hours and usually finish in 2 to 4 days.
 
I pitch starters and slurries right out of my 40 degree yeast fridge into wort in the mid 60s. Almost always see active fermentation within 8 hours and usually finish in 2 to 4 days.
ok so i dont need to warm it up then.
 
You can store slurry for ages, but you probably want to check it's still useful if it's been months.

If it's only been weeks to a few months I'll grab 0.5 - 1 litre of wort at the end of the mash and add that to the slurry in a container with a fair bit of headspace. Shake the crap out of it and leave it somewhere warmish. Once the boil has finished and it's cooled I'll expect to see activity in the slurry before I pitch it.

If it's been 4-6 months or more I'll use the slurry to make a starter 4 days or so before brew day with DME to about 1.040. I'll crash that when it hits peak activity, then decant that on brew day and repeat the approach above. With either way it's hopefully raring to go when I pitch.

And slurry can continue to ferment in the fridge, so I burp the containers every few months. I've also started to use PET for storage. It's probably more a problem for me than most, as a few of my slurries have brett.
 
I pitched slurry today from a batch that I bottled last Monday. After a few hours, so far, there is no visible activity. But I will be patient.
 
For an easy alternative, I make larger than necessary starters and harvest some of the clean yeast off of that.

So if I need ~200B cells, I'll make a starter for ~250B, and save 1/5 of the starter for later reuse. Then I just make another starter, on and on it goes.
 

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