SpaceManBrew
Member
So, today is the first day I 'washed' my yeast. (*Round of applause?!*)
Quick background on my process. Boiled 500ml of water, and chilled to 75 F. Pitched into my fermenter, gently sloshed around. and used a funnel with a screen to help keep out the trub. I cooled the slurry, poured off the top 'wort', used a tall pilsner (stanatized of course) glass and carefully put the yeast in there temporarily, cleaned out the flask, then put the yeast back in.. Repeated this several times. Now, to prove to myself that what I obtained was yeast I prepared a 1600ml starter, (just for kicks), and pitched the yeast... I was successful as I am getting 'fermentation', but now I am interested in just keeping this strain in the fridge. I was looking at glass test tubes with screw tops where I could put 90%+ yeast slurry... But don't quite understand how to calculate a more precise amount of yeast cells per ml. NB has 20ml test tubes that would work perfect, but from what I can figure out online it seems I would need say, 45-50ml of yeast for a 1080 OG brew. I would like to know how many cells I would have in each tube, that way I could put in, say 100 billion, more accurately and generate a new starter to pitch.. instead of making too small of a starter or too large. I feel like there isn't a very precise method without a lab, but maybe someone has figured it out?
Also, when it says the yeast can only be used 10 times, is it 10 times from the original strain? or can that be considered exponential? i.e. washed yeast turns into 5 - 100billion viles, where each of those creates 5 - 100 billion viles, so on and so forth. At the end of the day you could buy one pack and use it for 1 > 5 > 25 > 125 > 625 > ....>.... you get the point, brews! At some point you are going to run out of test tubes... At what point are the yeast going to tell you to F off and they die? or atleast start creating off flavors or inconsistency.
Quick background on my process. Boiled 500ml of water, and chilled to 75 F. Pitched into my fermenter, gently sloshed around. and used a funnel with a screen to help keep out the trub. I cooled the slurry, poured off the top 'wort', used a tall pilsner (stanatized of course) glass and carefully put the yeast in there temporarily, cleaned out the flask, then put the yeast back in.. Repeated this several times. Now, to prove to myself that what I obtained was yeast I prepared a 1600ml starter, (just for kicks), and pitched the yeast... I was successful as I am getting 'fermentation', but now I am interested in just keeping this strain in the fridge. I was looking at glass test tubes with screw tops where I could put 90%+ yeast slurry... But don't quite understand how to calculate a more precise amount of yeast cells per ml. NB has 20ml test tubes that would work perfect, but from what I can figure out online it seems I would need say, 45-50ml of yeast for a 1080 OG brew. I would like to know how many cells I would have in each tube, that way I could put in, say 100 billion, more accurately and generate a new starter to pitch.. instead of making too small of a starter or too large. I feel like there isn't a very precise method without a lab, but maybe someone has figured it out?
Also, when it says the yeast can only be used 10 times, is it 10 times from the original strain? or can that be considered exponential? i.e. washed yeast turns into 5 - 100billion viles, where each of those creates 5 - 100 billion viles, so on and so forth. At the end of the day you could buy one pack and use it for 1 > 5 > 25 > 125 > 625 > ....>.... you get the point, brews! At some point you are going to run out of test tubes... At what point are the yeast going to tell you to F off and they die? or atleast start creating off flavors or inconsistency.