Yeast recycling

[The Taxman]

Hey brewers.

My LHBS guy recommended that I start harvesting yeast from my brews instead of buying a new sachet from him every couple of weeks (obviously the mark-up on yeast is not too flash).

He suggested either digging up some of the trub from my primary fermentation, or saving the dregs from a few bottles of finished beer, giving it a little feed of LME, and then stuffing it in back of the fridge with a label on it.

What do you think about this practice, and have you got any tips/suggestions on the best way to go ?

Cheers.
Andrew

[toneyc]

Yep, it is a good way to stretch your brewing dollars. I wouldn't bother with dry yeast packets, but liquid yeast is costly enough to warrant it. There's a Wyeast page that details how to do it:

http://www.wyeastlab.com/hbrew/hbyewash.htm

I have done that a couple of times with good results, but I prefer the parallel propagation method to stretch my yeast:

http://www.bodensatz.com/homebrew/yeast/faq/#parallel

Again, this is with liquid yeast, not dry yeast.
Good luck!

:)
Toney.

[YamahaXS]

i stretch my yeast too...

I will usually brew a 10 gallon batch, so I split a 1.5 qt starter between two fermentation vessels.

Then, instead of harvesting, I will brew another batch the following week and pitch that batch directly ontop of the yeast cake from the first batch.

4 for the price of one. :)

[brewmonkey]

Do a search on harvesting as there has been some great threads on this. It is a great way to save some money but at the same time the ability to harvest, maintain and reuse the yeast properly can make it more trouble then it is worth.

Yeast must be stored properly and re-pitched ASAP. While you will find some members here telling you they get good results at 30 days+ in the fridge, I will tell you that is a bad way to go.

Yeast should be re-pitched within 48 hours. It should NEVER be stored in a fridge that has other food in it, especially dairy as the same things that spoil wort, spoil milk!

If you have the ability to store it on it's own in a clean food free fridge and as close to 32F as possible you can stretch the time to re-pitch out to 2 weeks easily if you follow storage procedures closely.

[Binko]

Perhaps a stupid question, but if I were to take, say, a White Labs vial of pitchable yeast that I usually use, and make a starter from half of it and store the other half for another time, is there any reason this wouldn't work?