Yeast Recovery

[Pilgrim]

Well after the Weary Pilgrim's inaugural brewday last Saturday I decided that I would have a go at re-using the yeast (US05) in order to save some money on the next brew. I had also read that yeast can improve over the next few brews (up to 5 re-uses). Now I've not done this before so please forgive my ignorance. I boiled some water and allowed it to cool to room temperature. I then poured off the liquid left in the bottom of the fermenter and poured in the water. I swirled it around and poured it into the flask. After 2 days in the fridge it has settled out and this is what it looks like.
Question is, what do I do with it now?

[James P]

You can do another harvest from there if you like. Boil water, cool, pour off the liquid in the flask, add the new water, swirl and then into sanitised bottles and cap (this is the short answer!). Label and store in fridge until next use.

I started harvesting on dried yeasts, however they are relatively cheap so I tend to use a new pack or two for each brew instead of mucking around harvesting. Liquid yeasts on the other hand will always be harvested!

[Stu McKinlay]

Chuck it out. Buy another pack. Your beer will be $6 more expensive but it'll be better and you'll save a lot of time. Note that that $6 could ferment 40L of 1.050 beer if you have the fermenter space, so it is not a lot per litre. S05 is a very very very good dry yeast.

Agree with James... learn about harvesting for the liquid yeasts.

However, for what you want to hear:
Your goal is to get all of that lovely creamy stuff (between the 'beer' and the 'crud') into another very clean and well sanitised airtight vessel. Store cold. Bring back to room temperature the day before using (as sson as possible). There is enough there for a fairly strong 20L brew.

Check out www.mrmalty.com - especially the calculator.

[jt]

Bring back to room temperature the day before using (as sson as possible).

With a starter ?

[JoKing]

The main problem that I see in this photo is that you've stuffed a tissue into the neck of your flask... not bad for keeping the baddies out... but it makes it difficult to steralise when you're getting the yeast out of there.

The good stuff is as Stu says... and there is heaps of it in this photo. Try to pour some / most of the liquid off above it, and gently swirl to get the creamy stuff into suspension... then put it into a sterile "volume denomination" jar so as to know how much yeast there is in there.

Id get your gas torch and flam the living shit out of the neck first though - then put some tin foil over the top as it cools down.

[martin w]

how long is harvested yeast viable for? i harvested 2 differerent types over the last couple of months and i havn't had the opportunity to reuse them yet

[James P]

Depending on how you harvested and stored you can get anything from one to 12 months. I have yeast frozen which I have used after 9 months, and yeast in the fridge which I have used after 6 months.

Best to make a starter and test the wort for smell and taste prior to using. Any signs of mutation, or infection ditch it.

[Glynn Foster]

Random query: I've had some 1084 in the fridge for a while. Looked at it today in preparation to use it this weekend, but has a very small number of spider like floaties. You think it's worth trying to do anything with it, or just give up immediately?

[Glynn Foster]

By 'spider like' I assume these are infections of some sort. They look like tummy button fuzz.

[denimglen]

Nah, I wouldn't use it.

How does it smell and taste?

[Glynn Foster]

Smelled ok, or at least no obvious sign of infection. Ended up tipping out a little into a glass, and it just tasted a little of stale beer. When I decided to not risk it, poured out the liquid, topped up the trub/yeast and swirled it around and then smelled once more - smelled pretty much exactly like my previous batch of infected beer. Good call, thanks Denim! (Now I needs to go order me some yeast for this weekend I guess!)

[Pilgrim]

Hey guys, thanks for the useful information. I might just play around with this stuff and do a few experiments. If I discover anything interesting I'll post the results.