I don’t typically re-use yeast, but I’m interested in starting.
How does 34/70 look to you all?
My transfer process doesn’t leave behind much beer in the primary. I used a sanitized ladle to scoop this out of the cone (I currently ferment in one of these: http://www.ssbrewtech.com/collections/fermenters/products/the-brewmaster-bucket).
I’m considering pitching some of it into a marzen in a few weeks.
Looks pretty normal to me, assuming it compacts down from there. If it’s going to be more than a few weeks I’d preferably build up a new starter.
Were you just looking for an excuse to show off your reading material? 
That crop will work just fine.
Top-cropping does not work very well with lager yeast. Top cropping requires a true top-cropping strain for best results.
Here’s what a true top-cropper looks like when the yeast flocs:
Cool, thanks for taking a look.
Wow, good catch. Being honest though, my wife is the one who reads the New Yorker. I don’t seem to have the patience for it.
“Friends don’t let friends use Star San as their primary sanitizer”
S,
I use it for bottling. What precautions should I be taking with Star San?
BV
With bottling you should start with clean bottles that are free of any gunk or leftover beer - that is as important as anything. My protocol is once I pour a beer out I rinse out the empty 3x with about 3-4 ounces of hot water and vigorously shake the water out each time then store the bottle somewhere clean. On bottling day I’ll rinse each bottle with home-brewed sanitizer (either peracetic acid or properly diluted bleach) rinse that one time and THEN give them a bit of star san solution, shake and pour upside down into my clean dishwasher rack. I know this sounds like a lot of steps but it works for me and really isn’t all that involved. I’m guessing I could skip the intermediate sanitizing step and would be good to go 99.9% of the time but it’s such a minimal additional time investment that I do it. Really though, getting the gunk out of a fresh empty goes a really long way…
I have successfully harvested yeast using the top cropping method for years. I do not understand why you would try to discourage someone from trying this ?
With a non-true top-cropping strain, one is cropping more expelled compounds than yeast. A foam krausen has a relatively low number of yeast cells compared to the yeast head produced by a true top-cropper. Lager strains are even worse than non-top-cropping ale strains in this regard. I would never recommend top-cropping a batch of lager.
Dilluh,
Here is my routine. After pouring a beer, I too fill the bottles 3-4 times with hot water vigorously shaking them and turn them upside down. After that I have two five gallon buckets with a strong bleach solution and store them there for anywhere from a a few days to weeks (depending on my needs). I remove them from the bleach bath, rinse each bottle three times hanging them them on a rack I made until dry. Then I put them in cases.
On bottling day, I mix a batch of star san and soak the bottles for 5 minutes and hang them on the rack before filling. So the two steps serve their own purpose, bleach for cleaning and Star San for sanitizing. My question was why “S” posted “friends don’t let friends use Star San”. Is this not a good sanitizer?
BV
It’s a very good sanitizer, but depending on which tradeoffs you want to prioritize there may be a better one for your application. Some other sanitizers are more effective against yeasts, and Mark had a persistent wild yeast contamination in his brewery, so he had to switch to something else (bleach, if I recall correctly). Tens of thousands of brewers use Star San every day without having a similar problem.
I’m not sure of the cleaning effectiveness of bleach but your overall process sounds good to me. I think getting bottles rinsed very thoroughly right after you pour a beer goes a really long way. If I’m feeling really ambitious I’ll soak bottles in oxiclean overnight for a cleaning step. If you’re getting the results you want and aren’t tasting off flavors from the bleach - no worries. 
Star San is not a broad-spectrum antimicrobial. It is a bactericide that is mistakenly sold in the home brew trade as a broad-spectrum antimicrobial. Star San belongs to a class of sanitizers known as acid-anionic sanitizers. Brewers erroneously assume that phosphoric acid is the killing agent in Star San when the surfactant (dodecylbenzenesulfonic acid) does the actual killing. Phosphoric acid merely lowers the pH to increase the effectiveness of the surfactant.
Star San is negatively charged; hence, the anionic in acid-anionic. It’s mode of action is via attraction to cells that hold a positive charge. Bacteria cells hold a positive charge. Yeast and mold cells hold a negative charge; therefore, Star San is not a very effective yeast and mold killer. The halogen-based sanitizers are broad spectrum and so is peracetic acid (for the non-chemically inclined, a halogen is an element with the suffix “ine”).
Brewing is not the original market for Star San. Star San is technically an acid-anionic detergent. Dodecylbenzenesulfonic acid is used in the formulation of detergents, especially laundry detergent.
What sanitizer do you recommend then? Are there any “no rinse” broad spectrum sanitizers that would be suitable for homebrewers that doesn’t cost a ton?
Iodophors.
When I brew I use C-Brite Cleanser. When I bottle I use Star San. As you can see from my above post, my bottles go through a rigorous cleaning before bottling.
What’s the favorite out there?
BV
go to general homebrew and look up sanitizer comparison
I have repitched about that much 34/70 slurry up to 6 generations (using shaken starters) with good results. Probably could have gone more.
Well, I pitched about 80% of what I harvested into a two liter starter last night (skipped the stir plate on this one but oxygenated for 25 seconds prior to pitching).
I pitched it at 8:45 last night; below is what it looked like 10 hours later at 6:45 this morning.
I stuck it in the fridge before I left for work about 90 minutes later. The plan is to decant and pitch into 5.25 gallons of marzen on Sunday morning.
