How much time is sufficient to have yeast in refrigerator before decanting ?
Thanks
Depends. If the starter was allowed to ferment out, the yeast will usually settle out a lot faster than if not. I usually have a solid yeast cake and clear liquid in less than 24 hours.
I totally agree with “It Depends”. Every yeast, and indeed every fermentation, is a little different.
That said… overnight to 24 hours is usually “good enough” to get the benefit you desire.
From the other side of the world on this discussion, I used to decant the layer of beer off the yeast cake, add some wort from the brew day, and put it on the stir plate for the time it takes me to transfer the beer from the kettle to the fermenter. I no longer do this. I just stir up the yeast cake on a stir plate and dump the whole slurry into the fermenter. The amount of beer on top of the yeast cake is not enough to effect the taste of the new batch.
That said, I don’t brew more than every couple weeks (I have 6 on tap here), so I normally make a starter with fresh yeast when I do since strains like Wyeast 1214 would sit in the fridge for a really long time while waiting for me to make a new batch of Quad. If I am going to make a batch with the same yeast, I just pull the yeast and use it as quickly as possible using the above method.
Just my 0.02
When I used a stir plate, I’d give it 3 days to settle before decanting. Then I saw the light and switched to SNS. I no longer decant and I prefer it.
1 pouch Wyeast 1469 West Yorkshire Ale, 1 can Omega yeast Propper starter.
A freshly emptied & sanitized 1 gallon distilled water jug is used, with holes poked on top of lid.
It’s shaken now and then for approx 48 hours before pitching.
Not decanting would be easier and more practical, have done both decanting, and not.
It’s not an unpleasant smell or taste, but I thought it was tasted in last
4.5g, approx 4% ABV batch, unless it was my imagination.
Another thought was possibly tossing good yeast when decanting.
How much wort? If it’s a qt., like standard SNS, I’d pitch it all.
Propper starter is 16 oz, plus one 16 oz can of water, so yes 32 oz (1 qt).
SOLD, pitching it all.
Cheers
When I harvest yeast, I let the yeast flocculate and keep the beer and the CO2 it produced to protect itself in canning jar (s) until I am ready to reuse it.
I recently picked up a technique from Ken and others to make ‘runs’ of three or four beers in a row using the same yeast strain. So, the harvested yeast sits in the refrigerator ~3-4 weeks which is my routine brewing cycle. I have gone 6 weeks but I don’t like to.
Then, on brew day I steal a little bit of sweet wort as it’s transferring from the MLT to the kettle. As I am bringing the main wort to boil, I cool the reserved wort with a cold RO water infusion diluting it to ~1.030 or so to get a quart or so in a growler to make my starter wort. I refrigerate it if further cooling to pitch temp is required. I simultaneously bring the yeast in jar(s) from refrigeration to room temp.
Once the starter wort is at pitch temp (65°F for Ale, 55°F for Lager), I decant the beer off the yeast cake in the mason jar(s), swirl the yeast into a slurry, add it to the cooled sweet wort in the growler, shake the bageezies out of it, and attach an airlock.
By the time I boil, hop, cool, and transfer my bitter wort to the fermenter the starter/yeast is bubbling away, raring to go. I pitch the entire starter.
Disclaimer: Any comment I add is simply the way I brew beer. I am not paid or sponsored by anyone. There are certainly other ways that can be equally effective which other brewers may contribute. This is what I’ve found that works for me using my equipment and processes so I offer this for your consideration. YMMV
Good to know, thanks.
I brew every 3-4 weeks also.
Will try it.
Cheers
Does pitching a big starter in a lager change the flavour? In my big system sometimes I have a 4 L starter.
I can’t speak from experience on that, but if the proportion of starter to wort is the same as for a 5 gal batch I think you’d be OK. A qt. starter pitched into 5 gal of lager certainkky doesn’t matter. But this assumes SNS process and no stir plate. If I used a stir plate I’d decant.
I have experienced some flabby, thin and expressionless lagers when overpitching a 5 gallon batch with a large starter or slurry re-pitch. I now favor repitching newly harvested slurry at a level that encourages some growth allowance for the yeast. I have a 300 ml SS ladle that I use to scoop out from a freshly racked fermenter - about two scoops for 10 gallon ales or a 5 gallon lager and 3-4 scoops for a 10 gallon lager. This is one of those anecdotal approaches, as I don’t have any science behind it; but it has shown to me that relatively recently fermented slurry is pretty much still ready to go once pitched. I literally swirl up and scoop from the racked off fermenter into the new batch of aerated wort in a new fermenter. I get quick starts and usually fully complete fermentations within 5-6 days.
I use a Tilt Hydrometer to monitor the ferment and typically ferment under pressure. If a slightly poorer fermentation arises or the flavor doesn’t shine, I know it is time to start over with new yeast. I usually will take it out about 6-8 generations (re-pitches, actually), but I have re-pitched over 25 successive batches without big issues.
I found the same thing many years ago. My beer improved when I started pitching 1/3-1/2 the slurry rather than the entire thing.
Remember Mark Van Ditta and his encyclopedic knowledge of yeast?
From Mark Van Ditta
Basically, it has always been a bad move that has been difficult to kill because every newbie wants to
gain some street cred by publishing an article on yeast rinsing. Do you want to know where the practice
of rinsing yeast with boiled water originated within the amateur brewing community? Charlie Papazian
introduced it in the “New Complete Joy of Homebrewing” (it may even date back to an earlier
publication of that book). He also promoted the use of a secondary fermentation vessel as a way to
prevent autolysis. While using a secondary fermentation vessel to prevent autolysis has gone the way of
the do-do bird, amateur brewers still cling to yeast rinsing, a practice that is not based on science and
provides no microbiological advantage.
Brewing yeast strains are Crabtree postiive. What that means is that whenever the medium gravity is
above the Crabtree threshold of 0.2% w/v (an S.G. of 1.0008), brewing yeast cultures will chose
fermentation over respiration even in the prescence of O2. There is scientific evidence that brewing
cultures became Crabtree positive due to competitive pressure. You see, the main reason why we have
cell counts in the first place is that they are primarily a safeguard against a micro-oganism other than the
pitched yeast culture owning the wort. From the time a yeast culture is pitched until the culture grows
large enough to reach high krausen, it is in competition for ownership of the wort with wild microflora
(boiled wort is not absolutely sterile and sanitization is not a synonym for sterilization). A yeast culture
owns a batch of wort by doing three things. First, it consumes all of the dissolved O2, shutting out
aerobic microflora. It then lowers the pH to around 4, which shuts out pH sensitive microflora. The pH
sensitive microflora include the pathogen Clostridium botulinum, which cannot replicate below a pH of
4.6. The final defense that a yeast culture mounts is the production of ethanol, which is toxic to all living
organism at a given level, even human beings (i.e., people die from alcohol poisoning every day).
When a brewer rinses yeast with boiled water, he/she removes the protective force field that a yeast
culture built for itself, basically opening it up to infection from house microflora while providing zero
microbiological advantage. A yeast culture does not need to be kept free from trub and hop particulate
matter. It is needs to be kept as free from wild microflora as possible because every time a culture is
pitched it is an opportunity for microflora other than the culture to replicate. This reality is what places
an upper limit on bottom-cropped yeast more so that any other other reason when a yeast culture is not
serially overpitched.
Now, top-cropping an interesting take on cropping. While the top-cropped yeast should also be stored
under green beer, top-cropping naturally purifies a yeast culture because wild microflora do not floc to
the top, which means that top-cropped yeast can be re-pitched almost indefinitely as long as care is
taken to not infect the culture. The sad thing is that I have never heard of true top-cropping lager yeast.
If you need further evidence that yeast rinsing an amateur brewer fabrication that is not based on
microbiology, watch how a craft or industrial brewery bottom crops yeast. They either pump it out of
the cone into a yeast brink for temporary storage or into a fermentation vessel with fresh wort. I have
yet to see a professional brewery rinse yeast with water before repitching it.
I remember that. Great read (again).
Like I said yeast rinsing is a newbie fad and a waste of time ;D
It was also you that got me to see the light on not doing secondaries.
Tried top cropping (1469) but it didn’t go well, brown chunks all over the place, chucked it.
So, on to my real question, how much of the saved yeast from the bottom should I use ?
Same batch size and ABV.
Thanks
If the OG of the next beer is under 1.060 I’d use 1/3 of it. Higher than that I’d use 1/2.
Thank You !
I’m a newbie to reusing yeast (first time)
Cheers & Thanks
Per WYeast:
REPITCHING BY WEIGHT OR VOLUME:
Estimates of cell counts can be made using percent yeast solids of the slurry. Percentage of yeast solids per volume of slurry can be estimated by allowing a sample to sediment under refrigeration and estimating the percent solids. Generally 40-60% yeast solids will correlate to 1.2 billion cells per mL. This will vary with the yeast strain. By using this method with every brew, a brewer can achieve consistent pitch rates batch to batch resulting in a more consistent product.
Once the brewer has determined the desired pitch rate and cell density of the slurry the brewer can collect the appropriate quantity of yeast. Slurry can be harvested based on volume or weight. 1.0 L (1 quart) of yeast slurry (40% yeast solids) weighs approximately 1.1 Kg (2.4 lbs). The following guidelines will deliver the appropriate pitch rates.
Ales with a specific gravity < 1.064 (16 °P): pitch 1.0 Kg (2.2 lbs) of thick slurry (40% yeast solids) per 1 BBL (1.17 hL) or 1 Liter (1 quart) of thick slurry per 1 BBL (1.17 hL)
Lagers with a specific gravity < 1.064 (16 °P): pitch 2.0 Kg (4.4 lbs.) of thick slurry (40% yeast solids) per 1 BBL (1.17 hL) or 2 Liters (2 quarts) of thick slurry per 1 BBL (1.17 hL)
High lagers with a specific gravity > 1.064 (16 °P): pitch 3.0 Kg (6.6 lbs.) of thick slurry (40% yeast solids) per 1 BBL (1.17 hL) or 3 Liters (3 quarts) of thick slurry per 1 BBL (1.17 hL)
Ref: Yeast Harvesting & Repitching - Wyeast Lab
I believe 1 US BBL ≈ 31 US gal. 1 US Qt ≈ 32 US fl oz. So, ~ 1 fl oz per gal Ale and ~2 fl oz per gal Lager < 1.064. ~3 oz per gal > 1.064.
I use 12 fl oz pitch in 4.5 gal wort for Lager and 6 for an Ale (when I harvest and repitch). I want the desired yeast to outperform any undesirable microbes I may have inadvertently harvested or otherwise introduced. I do this as described in post #9 above.
Disclaimer: Any comment I add is simply the way I brew beer. I am not paid or sponsored by anyone. There are certainly other ways that can be equally effective which other brewers may contribute. This is what I’ve found that works for me using my equipment and processes so I offer this for your consideration. YMMV