Using sanitation solution to harvest yeast

I saw someone successfully use sanitation solution like Five Star, in the standard sanitation dilution, instead of boiled water to harvest yeast.  It seems logical to me but I can't find any threads on it.  Any thoughts on this?

Phil

Look up yeast washing.  Its a professional brewer's yeast handling technique. 

I don't do it, so I don't know THAT much about it.  But, the idea is that brewer's yeast can survive a little longer than most bacteria at low pH.  So, you subject the slurry to an acid bath that kills the bacteria while still allowing the yeast to survive.  They can't live like this for long, but if it is rinsed with sterile water at the right moment you have healthy cleanER yeast. 

There are a lot of particulars (pH of the acid solution, contact time, etc) that must be followed for this to work out and leave you with live yeast, and dead bacteria.  I'm not sure that StarSan is the right solution for the job (I'm pretty sure it isn't).

For those that aren't as familiar with yeast harvesting, I think it's important to define yeast washing and yeast rinsing.

Yeast Washing is the process of washing the yeast with an acid solution to eliminate bacteria.  I'm not really familiar with this process, so I can't really educate much on it.

Yeast Rinsing is the process of adding sterilized water (I add 2/3rds of a jar of boiled sterilized water from a 2 quart canning jar) to the yeast, trub and any left over beer.  Then it is swirled up into a slurry and then left to sit and seperate.  The trub will be at the bottom, the yeast in the middle and the beer on the top.  You gently pour the beer off of the top and discard it.  I pour it right into my utility sink.  Then you carefully decant the middle yeast layer into the now empty 2 quart canning jar.  Make sure you stop before the trub starts going in.  With a practiced eye, you'll eventually know about how much water to add to the fermentor to yield about 2 quarts of yeast slurry into your canning jar. 

Once it's in the canning jar, close it up tight and shake the crap out of it and then let it sit and separate again.  You'll again get the three distinct layers.  Have 4 sterilized pint canning jars ready.  Pour the water/beer top laying down the sink.  Then pour the middle yeast layer into 3 or 4 of the canning jars, depending on how much yeast slurry you've harvested.  I then top the jars up with sterile water and seal them, and put labels on the lids as to what yeast it is, when it was harvested and how many times it's been harvested.  Shake it up and put it in the fridge.  In a day or two you'll have a nice layer of clean yeast on the bottom 1/3 or so of the jar and clear liquid on top of that. 

I use the "yeast rinsing" method with the boiled water and have never had a problem.  Star San is a sanitizer and not a sterilizer.  If you boil your jars and lids and promptly seal them up with the sterilized (boiled) water, then you have a sterile environment.  The yeast are coming out of an environment where they have out-competed any bacteria (hopefully), they are basically as close to a sterile condition as you can get without acid rinsing.

I would think that if you used Star San to sanitize your jars, you're counting on non-feeding yeast to out-compete any bacteria that survived the star san treatment.  Yeast need food to compete against bacteria, from what I understand of the process.

Boiling canning jars and filling them with the water in them that they were boiled in is easy. 

I tried StarSan in the standard dilution and the yeast looked perfect.  They were also dead.  D.E.A.D. dead!  Luckily I had a starter going anyway.  I am not sure how to do it but just adding it to StarSan for a day resulted in fine and dead yeast cake.

Deprived of food and water, left in the middle of Death Valley in August, and you wouldn't fare too well, either. 

Yeast washing is done in 20 to 60 minutes. Then you should rinse with distilled water and immediately pitch it into either a starter or a batch of beer.

I've never tried washing.  Been rinsing only. What pH or ratio of what acid would you use for washing?  I see you recommend pitching immediately.  I am in no way doubting you, but can you explain why?  I am guessing vitality takes a hit from the pH?  I have had good results rinsing to 5 times then automatically start over, am guessing again that washing would get you more generations? 

I have often wondered  -  when harvesting yeast, would it not be just as effective to immerse the mason jars / lids in star san for a few minutes rather than boiling them?


I have done that a coupe of times, but everything I read talks about boiling the containers.

Brian

I have never boiled.  Starsan works for me. 

In regards to washing, after reading about it in the yeast book it looks like there is no reason to do it on our scale. 

I always use my pressure canner to autoclave all tools and containers that I use for yeast handling.  I reuse a lot of yeast, and might keep it around for 5 or 6 generations.  As such, I try pretty hard to ensure that the washing and handling steps are as sterile as I can.

But, then I pressure can 3 gallons of starter wort, and 3 gallons of water, and even a few empty jars (with a teaspoon water in them) at a time as well.  That way I have room temperature, sterile starter wort, water, and washing containers available at all times.  I just open a jar, flame the lip and pour. 

I generally keep my flasks sealed inside the autoclave pre-sterilized. 

This keeps the starter making process short and sweet.  Since, starters generally get made on a weeknight...having everything all ready is very convenient:

1. Remove flask from canner. 
2. Open jar of wort, flame, pour into flask. 
3. Place on stirplate, add yeast. 

5 minutes of work, done.

tom_hampton said:

I always use my pressure canner to autoclave all tools and containers that I use for yeast handling.  I reuse a lot of yeast, and might keep it around for 5 or 6 generations.  As such, I try pretty hard to ensure that the washing and handling steps are as sterile as I can.

But, then I pressure can 3 gallons of starter wort, and 3 gallons of water, and even a few empty jars (with a teaspoon water in them) at a time as well.  That way I have room temperature, sterile starter wort, water, and washing containers available at all times.  I just open a jar, flame the lip and pour. 

I generally keep my flasks sealed inside the autoclave pre-sterilized. 

This keeps the starter making process short and sweet.  Since, starters generally get made on a weeknight...having everything all ready is very convenient:

1. Remove flask from canner. 
2. Open jar of wort, flame, pour into flask. 
3. Place on stirplate, add yeast. 

5 minutes of work, done.

Click to expand...

I guess I'm going to go out and purchase another case of pint canning jars, so that I can start storing wort for starters in the proper sized canning jars.  Great idea.  Thanks Tom!  +1

I thought Jamil was crazy, psycho when I first heard that he did this.  I thought it was just OTT.  Then I tried it.  Obviously, I changed my mind. 

I think I have about 4 cases of quart jars, a couple cases of pint jars, and a case of 8 oz jars.  I use wide-mouth jars for the quarts and pints, because they stack securely.  You cannot stack the narrow mouth jars. 

Be sure to buy a ton of lids.  Lids must be new every time. 

Also, I create my starter wort all-grain.  I make about 3 gallons of 1.036 wort at a time, and can it all up.  Generally, I use about 4 lbs of domestic 2-row for a batch.  I have a 2 gallon MLT cooler with a SS braid (Denny Con style) that I use for starter mashing (or experimental small brews).  I mix the runnings from the mash, add yeast nutrient, and then go straight to the canning jars.  The pressure canner takes care of the boiling.  You get a fair bit of hot-break from the 250F canning process, but that decants off easy enough.

What method did you use prior to autoclave and what improvements did you see once you switched?  Better beer?  More generations?  I see you decided to forego the Nalgene bottles.