Recovering Yeast

Hey Guys,
Kind of a long story, please bear with me...

I have experimented with yeast recovery 2 times. I washed the yeast according to Palmer's recommendation, which yielded a small amount(3/8 inch?) of good looking yeast covered by 2 inches of spent beer(using a 1 qt canning jar). I decanted most of the spent junk and added a 1 pint starter. There was some activity, but nothing great. However, the amount of yeast layer went from 3/8 inch to 1/2 inch. I assumed therefore that the amount of useful yeast cells had grown enough.

When added to a 5 gallon batch of pumpkin ale, everything looked normal in the primary. I transferred to seconday after 7 days and everything looked normal. But after 3 days in the secondary, the airlock went totally flat. I'm not used to this. Usually, my airlock stays "up" until bottling time. So, I waited several days and bottled. I use plastic bottles, so I can tell by squeezing them if they are carbonated. After 7 days, no signs of carbonation...

After 10 days of nothing, I am forcing things a little. I put all the bottles in a bin and put christmas lights in with them to raise the temp. After 3 days of that, they are finally showing some signs of carbonation.

The exact same thing is happening with the second batch I have tried. Secondary is flat as heck...

Any thoughts? Am I not using enough washed yeast?

Thanks!!
Dan

dnd0327 said:

.......I decanted most of the spent junk and added a 1 pint starter. There was some activity, but nothing great. However, the amount of yeast layer went from 3/8 inch to 1/2 inch.

Click to expand...

When I add a smack pack to a small starter it does better than 'some activity' so that seems odd. 

How long did this sample sit, at what temps? The condition of what cells you  had, more than the quantity, seems doubtful.

I'm not using smack packs. I am taking the trub from a prior primary fermentation and "washing" it down to "usable" yeast. It takes a bit of work and does not seem worthwhile...

The best way Ive found to recover or harvest yeast is a little different than what Palmer suggests.

When your beer is in primary and in High Krausen it will have a bunch of foamy yeast on the top of the carboy or bucket.

If using a bucket simply skim the yeast with a sterile spoon into a sterile vessel to store it in.

Or if your using a carboy you can put a carboy cap on it with a racking cane into the fermentor. Put your siphon tube on that and run that to another hard tube that goes down into a 2 hole bung that fits a growler. Run this into the growler and put an airlock on the other hole in the bung. Now you have a sanitized closed system in which the racking cane sits just into the foam and the pressure from the c02 created will push the foam through the hose into the sealed growler. Remove it when the foam starts collapsing or ferm starts to slow. Now what you have caught in the blowoff is 100% viable yeast foam and can be stored and used to make a starter later or can be pitched directly into 5 gallons of wort (not sure how much foam is needed to pitch directly though).

I will post a pic of what I am talking about later. Or you can see a pic of this in Randy Mosher's book "Radical Brewing."  Or listen to the Brewstrong on Yeast Washing. Jamil and John Palmer explore this technique and explain it better than I can.

Off to work for now...