Wyeast 3944 Wash - Yeast or Trub?

[Tomcat0304]

I tried washing yeast for the first time and am not sure that I was successful. I brewed up a Belgian Wit using Wyeast 3944, bottled last Friday (3/22/13) and "washed" at that time according to the "Yeast Washing Illustrated" thread.

I fermented in a bucket, so poured the water from the jars into the bucket. After waiting the 20 minutes, I couldn't tell much difference so I racked from the top to a 1 gallon jar, and didn't see any settling or trub in the bucket. Let this jar sit for 20 mins, and didn't see any settling, so I put the jar in the fridge for 30 mins and still no difference. I went ahead and poured half to the next smaller jar, stuck in fridge for 30 mins, no visible settling, went ahead and poured to 2.5 mason jars. Repeat with the other half from the 1 gallon jar.

The first photo is of the 5 jars shortly after filling them. The second photo is of the jars this evening after work (about 88 hours later). There is a small layer of white above the bottom darker cream layer if that helps.

 

[tagz]

That's a ton of usable yeast. There is most likely a decent amount of trub as well, but it won't hurt you any. Once it is compacted you can assume you have about 1 billion cells per ml.

 

[pabloj13]

The creamy white layer is your yeast. The layer under it is mostly trub, but probably with some yeast mixed in.

 

[tagz]

If you only use the white layer you are missing out on 90% of the yeast.