Anyone feel like walking me through this? Links?
I’ve been meaning to pick that book up. Looks like a good one.
I found this helpful. http://home.comcast.net/~wnevits/wizards/yeast_washing_rev_5.pdf
Nice! While I’ll plan to buy the book Gordon suggests, I think this will get me started. Thanks, Maxieboy.
Just to be fair, the topic is also covered here: http://www.homebrewersassociation.org./pages/community/news/show?title=brewing-better-beer but Jamil’s book has pictures on it and more detailed instructions.
I bought your book today Gordon. That’s why I can’t buy Jamil’s until I finish reading yours. You know, it costs the same as a batch! But I will buy it at some point.
It seems that some yeast strains are easier to wash than others. It appears that some strains actually settle underneath the trub but most settle on top. I’ve had some lager yeasts that weren’t as easy to wash and the Fullers strain (Wyeast 1968 or WLP002) makes flocs so big they often settle faster than the trub (even after a lot of agitation to try and break up the flocs).
What do you guys do for these difficult-to-wash strains? I usually just accept the trub; I only wash it once anyway and I always plan another batch within 48 hours of the wash. I can’t yet blame it on poor washing or excess trub but there have been a few repitch batches where the head retention was noticably poor. It’s also possible I over-pitched those batches.