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Reusing yeast question with pix

MaltLicker

MaltLicker

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I captured my last two yeasts as practice (see pix).  The one from secondary is cleaner (rear) than the one from primary only (front, a hefeweizen). 

Questions:
Are these "clean enough" to not bother with the washing with boiled/cooled/distilled water? 

Would you take a healthy dose of this yeast and make a new starter, to ensure more fresh cells, or just use these as is?  The hefe was actually a starter that I had from a stuck sparge I bailed on.  It sat in cooler for three-plus weeks and performed great. 

I bought a seasonal/platinum Belgian strain and I want to save it and re-use.  Probably Belgian pale and then a Belgian strong.
 

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Clean enough, yes and they look great....free of trub.  I have been reusing yeast at times with good results and have only washed a single time.  I have had a bit of trub and few flakes of hops from using pellets in the yeast at times but so what.  In fact, my anal retentive sanitary methods have loosened to only slightly retentive with the same results....no infections, no off flavors.  In fact I have pored fresh wort on the yeast cake just after transferring a similar style beer to the secondary.  This seemed a bit crude but a fellow home brewer does it regularly. In comparison to these methods your yeast looks ready for the show room floor.

Pitch em!!
 
sickbrew said:
Clean enough, yes and they look great....free of trub.  I have been reusing yeast at times with good results and have only washed a single time.  I have had a bit of trub and few flakes of hops from using pellets in the yeast at times but so what.  In fact, my anal retentive sanitary methods have loosened to only slightly retentive with the same results....no infections, no off flavors.  In fact I have pored fresh wort on the yeast cake just after transferring a similar style beer to the secondary.  This seemed a bit crude but a fellow home brewer does it regularly. In comparison to these methods your yeast looks ready for the show room floor.

Pitch em!!
Click to expand...
Ditto.  I just use a sanitized mason jar, swirl the primary after racking out the beer, fill the jar.  Cover loosely, put in fridge until next time I want that yeast, then take out and let it warm up before pitching into new batch.  Works great.  I go for the lazy brewer methods.  Less work does not mean less quality. (And the reverse may be not necissarily be true either)
 
Maltlicker,

We haven't done the washing and then making starters.  We do reuse collected yeast slurry. Typically we collect 450 to 500 ml from the primary when we rack to a secondary, we then just pitch the slurry.
Sequence of events are: brew, rack previous batch while boiling, collect slurry, clean & sanitize primary, chill boiled wort, transfer into primary and pitch.

We've pushed this to 10 batches and have not seen a drop in apparent attenuation or noticed any off flavors. We quit at 10 because a lot of extra "stuff" on the sides of the primary. There beers clear fine in the secondary but we quit at 10 anyway. Guilt maybe? ::)

Preston
 
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