Re-use from fermenter or culture up from slant

[Bingin Barrel]

Does anybody have any opinions on this from a brewpub perspective ( say 10HL). Is it realistic to use cultured up slants for each brew or is re-using yeast a better way to go ( until it mutates of course)?

[beerking]

I just grew up a culture of Trappist yeast from 4 White Labs vials, which I pitched into a 3 BBL batch at the brewpub. Stuff took off like a rocket! In hindsight, I probably could have done it with 2 vials.
I pitched 2 vials into each of 2 flasks with 1L of starter. I then chilled and decanted, pitched 1.5L in each. After that was done, I chilled and decanted, and added the yeast from both into a 3 gal carboy with 2 gal starter. Blow off went crazy, and I lost some yeast into the blow off bucket, but I pitched the results and it worked great.
You could do it with a slant, but it would take longer (this took me about a week). General rule of thumb is to expect 2-3 times as much yeast after each round of starter. If you are good, you might get 4X, but I would not count on that.
Make sure you use nutrient and oxygenate well.

[barleyburps]

I worked in a brewpub years ago, and our method was to pull the yeast from the primary at the end of fermentation and store it in a sanitized stainless milk jug in the cold room until the next batch. We would grow up new yeast after 14 generations or so.

[Bingin Barrel]

I worked in a brewpub years ago, and our method was to pull the yeast from the primary at the end of fermentation and store it in a sanitized stainless milk jug in the cold room until the next batch. We would grow up new yeast after 14 generations or so.


Did you ever have to dump a batch in the fermenter because of infection in the pulled yeast?

[barleyburps]

we had open fermenters (glycol chilled), in a semi-chilled room to help keep the bacteria count down. and we brewed only lagers.

cleanliness, and a quick start from a good pitching rate will do the trick.