• Welcome to the new forum! We upgraded our forum software with a host of new boards, capabilities and features. It is also more secure.
    Jump in and join the conversation! You can learn more about the upgrade and new features here.

Harvesting and rinsing yeast tutorial.

Scott Ickes

Grandmaster Brewer
Joined
Aug 3, 2013
Messages
1,281
Reaction score
0
Location
Vancouver, WA
I had to rack to the secondary today, so I decided to take photos and provide a powerpoint tutorial on my process for harvesting yeast.

I had to break it into part 1 and part 2, as it has a lot of photos.

Enjoy!!

I saved the full document as a pdf.  It's much smaller in size now and should be easier to download!
 

Attachments

  • Harvesting and Rinsing Yeast.pdf
    1 MB · Views: 77
I think it's excellent. Wife has me painting the house. Haven't had much time for the forum.
 
I snapped a photo before heading off to bed.  One day later, this is how they looked.
 

Attachments

  • One day later.JPG
    One day later.JPG
    117 KB · Views: 16
Scott,

Thank you for putting this together, it is extremely helpful!!  I have not started to harvest yeast yet, but this will get me going in the right direction.

-Dan
 
it's good stuff scott. your input and contributions are always helpful .
 
Very informative. Thank you.  I have been harvesting a while now, trial and error basis, and having success. I was not going to such details for washing rinsing and separating.
 
twhitaker said:
Very informative. Thank you.  I have been harvesting a while now, trial and error basis, and having success. I was not going to such details for washing rinsing and separating.

The most important detail is sterilization when possible and sanititation when sterilization isn't possible.

The thing is, that once you crack that sealed, sterilized canning jar of water open, you go from sterilized to sanitized. 

I have had only good experiences so far and have not picked up any infections yet. 
 
Thank you Scott!
Your presentation is easy to follow and with good quality/educative pictures :)

I have harvested a couple of times now with success, following nearly the same process described by you.
The next time I will change my procedure and start with adding sterilized water to the sediment in the fermentor and swirl it thoroughly and wait for separation, as you describe. Then I will pour the yeast layer into sterilized canning jars. The next steps are the same in my process. 
The difference is that I used to pour the slush immediately into the sterilized jars. I think your approach is better.
Again, thanks a lot!

Regards,
Slurk
 
Nice, Scott. 

I know the effort that goes into this level of process documentation.  It IS appreciated!
 
Great you answered all my question, except one is the final product the same? And what happen if I pitch more yeast to fermenter.
 
Damrite said:
Great you answered all my question, except one is the final product the same?

I'm not sure what you mean when you ask, "is the final product the same".  My experience is that the yeast ferments the same as it did when I used the smack pack or vial.  I only use to four generations.  I'm sure if I tried to go further, things would change due to mutations in the yeast.  However, I stop at four generations just to be safe. 

The math and economics are:
Original yeast costs $7.
I get three canning jars of one pint each. 
I make starters, so I save $7 on my next three brews for a total of $21.
Those three brews yield 9 additional one pint canning jars, saving me 9 x $7 = $63.
Those 9 jars yield me 27 one pint canning jars, saving me 27 x $7 = $189.

So, by harvesting yeast I can potentially save $263!  I can buy a lot of grain and hops with $263! 

If you have a house yeast, then harvesting yeast is a great option, because your using it before you have a lot of dead yeast cells.  You'll also be using it quickly.   

If you use different yeast strains, then it isn't as economical.  You need to use harvested yeast fairly quickly.  If not, you'll have a lot of dead yeast cells (see Mr. Hampton's comments in other threads about harvesting yeast and viability.  If you don't use it quickly, you may have to only use a portion of the yeast in a particular canning jar to keep the dead yeast cell count down and step your starters.  This gets you into using more wort to step your starters, cutting into your savings somewhat.
 
Hi Scott,

This is possibly a dumb question, but what the hey...I'll ask it anyways.  Having never harvested yeast before, the process is fairly straightforward (using your excellent guidance).  Once I have all that yeast stored in my fridge, how do you determine how much of it to pitch?  I know how to calculate the amount of yeast that I require...but how do you estimate the number of yeast cells available in the harvested jars?

Thanks,
Dan
 
drb1215 said:
Hi Scott,

This is possibly a dumb question, but what the hey...I'll ask it anyways.  Having never harvested yeast before, the process is fairly straightforward (using your excellent guidance).  Once I have all that yeast stored in my fridge, how do you determine how much of it to pitch?  I know how to calculate the amount of yeast that I require...but how do you estimate the number of yeast cells available in the harvested jars?

Thanks,
Dan

Instead of going through it all here, I'll just give you the link to another thread here that covered it.

http://www.beersmith.com/forum/index.php/topic,10388.0.html

I hope this helps.
 
The best way to harvest yeast is to brew the same day you keg (or bottle). I use a conical fermenter but, this method works with carboys and buckets as well. With a conical fermenter you just pull the yeast off of the bottom and dump it back in the new beer. I'm sure most of you know that. If you use buckets or carboys, just pull the beer off the top, shake that shit in the bottom of your carboy or bucket up, and dump it in the new batch. Simple. BTW this post was for the newer brewer. Hope it was helpful.
 
Back
Top