Yeast washing ?

[capt82]

I'm attempting to wash some yeast and don't know if I got those little guys or not!

After I placed a 1 quart mason jar in fridge with all the trub and about 2 cups of boiled/cooled water, I let sit until the layers appeared. From bottom to top I had about 2-3" of what looked like trub, 2-3" of what looked like wort, and then on top what looked like about 1/2" of krausen. Not what I was expecting to see.

I dumped what appeared to be krausen in to a second jar with about 1 cup of boiled/cooled water. I was wondering if the yeast was top feeding on the left over wort. The yeast is a Safale 05 (top feeder I think?). After it settled, it now looks like yeast cake on bottom of jar with the clearer watery/wort on top.

Could that "krausen" looking layer been the yeast or should I have taken the top couple inches off the bottom trub looking layer?

 

[kh54s10]

If you only took the floating layer you probably ended up collecting very little yeast. The normal stratification with yeast washing is a dark layer on the bottom = trub. This is proteins, break material, grain pieces and hop debris. Above this would be a creamy colored layer that is the yeast. Above that is beer/water. Anything floating on top ???

Top fermenting usually means where the activity occurs during the active portion of the fermentation. When washing, I expect this is more just some foaming, maybe mostly co2 coming out of solution.

Pour off the liquid then try to collect the top layer of the thicker material (the creamy colored part) this is where the yeast is.

 

[capt82]

That's what I was afraid of. The trub layer all looked creamy and consistent the whole layer. I thought it all must have been trub and no yeast.

After the second jar settled, that top layer from 1rst jar did settle to bottom and looks like the creamy yeast cake

For next time, if there is no obvious changes in that bottom layer, should if just take the top couple inches and continue the washing?

 

[kh54s10]

I haven't washed much yeast, I make vials from a starter for freezing. But, I read a method that I am going to try.

Take the cake and pour it into a large jar. Add some boiled and cooled (sterile) water. Shake well and let it settle for a while. While the liquid is still cloudy and there is a layer of debris settled out, pour the liquid off into another sanitized jar and discard the sediment that fell to the bottom. This cloudy water/beer will be mostly yeast. Do it another time or two and all of the heaver trub material should have dropped fast and have been discarded.

 

[capt82]

That sounds like a good method if you keep your eye on it before it all settles. The last time I tried to do this I thought you keep the bottom layer and dump off the top two. I re-read the directions and realized I messed that one up too. That batch had 3 distinct layers. This last one not so much. I figure if I could learn this skill, I could keep the costs down a little too.


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