Well, I decided to take a shot at harvesting yeast. With the cost of supplies and shipping going up, I figure that it’s only going to get worse before it gets better. By harvesting yeast, if done properly, a home brewer can save a lot of money on their cost of brewing. Now if you are using dry yeast, or the Mr. Beer ale yeast that ships with the HME cans, there wouldn’t be any need to harvest your yeast. But, if you are like me, and like to play around with different strains of liquid yeast, you can go through 2-3 smack packs or vials of yeast a month. At a cost of $4 - $6 per smack pack or vial (plus shipping) this can add up in a hurry.

I have read many different ways of harvesting yeast and have had input from people on this board and have compiled what I consider to be the safest and easiest way to harvest yeast. This is a “work in progress” but so far the results look so good that I had to share the results and process so far.

There are many different ways of harvesting yeast. I decided to go with the method of harvesting the yeast from the bottom of the fermentor after bottling (or bottom cropping). This way I didn’t have to worry about contaminating the batch by trying to collect the yeast during fermentation. Maybe 6 months down the road I’ll attempt other methods and share those results also.

First of all, sanitation is key to make this work. I would double or triple your sanitation efforts that you would normally use in your brewing process just to be safe.

There were all kinds of containers discussed to use for storing the yeast that was collected. Everything from zip-lock baggies to mason jars. I decided to use glass Arizona Ice Tea bottles.

First I filled up the brew pot with water and submerse my bottles and caps. I put the pot on the stove and boil for 30 mins.



I used tongs to pull the bottles out of the pot, dumping just a bit of water out as I pulled them out, then grabbed a cap out with the tongs also. Using hot pads, I put the cap on while everything was still really hot.

I decided to let them sit out at room temperature for about 4 hours to cool gradually (didn’t want the bottles to break) then put them in the frig. The next day they were all cooled down and the little pop-top on the caps were not popped any more so, and long as they stay up-popped (sorry, don’t have a better way to explain this) then the seal is air tight.




I kept the bottled water cold because it makes collecting the yeast so much easier. I had a glass growler that I decided to use as my “test fermentor”. I’m going to use it to ferment test batches with my collected yeast till I’m comfortable about pitching the harvested yeast into my Mr. Beer kegs. I also used it here to test some new dry yeast.




On the bottom, the yeast that needs to be collected has settled on top of the turb. I siphoned the beer out and bottled it. After bottling, I used a cotton ball with alcohol on it and rubbed it on the neck of my growler and growler cap then took out an Arizona Ice Tea bottle, opened it and dumped it into the growler and put the cap back on the Arizona Ice Tea bottle and the growler. Swirled the growler around to gently mix everything up a bit and let it sit for about an hour. The turb settled back out and the yeast that needs to be collected is in suspension.



I poured it back into the Arizona Ice Tea jar and recapped it. Put it in the frig and let it sit. I also collected the yeast in my Mr. Beer keg that I had fermenting at the same time using this same method. One of the bottles I “washed” the yeast, on the other bottle I didn’t. I also had some vials for collecting blood available to me so I decided to use one to store the yeast also since they are sterile and make a perfect clean storage container.




I’m brewing again this coming weekend so I’ll use some of the collected yeast to brew another test batch. I figure that in about 1-3 months I’ll feel comfortable enough to pitch the harvested yeast into my Mr. Beer kegs or abandon this endeavor all together.

If I only go 4 generations with my yeast and harvest 2 bottles from every batch, it looks like I should be able to brew up to 60 batches from 1 smack pack!! I’m not planning on doing this. My plan is to play around with 3 or 4 different yeast strains and alternate which ones I using from month to month, harvesting when I need to. That way I can still have variety but not have to buy yeast for quite some time.

Happy Brewing!
John

Sweet!

WOW!!! that's great John

Very nice John.

Perfect job!

Not going to take all the credit jkarp. A lot of this came from your advice. Thank You.

Well done.

Nice post. I used the ziplock bag method when I saved my yeast. I was the Mr.Beer ale yeast but wanted to experiment with what I had. Also I thought each time you use yeast in a batch I takes on some of those characters/flavors.
Either way my saved yeast worked very well.

I now have a brand new wrinkle in my brain. Well done.

Do you then keep the yeast in the bottle of water? How do you pitch? Do you slowly warm it in the water? How do you know what 'enough' yeast is?

fascinating. how did this end up working out for you?

I decided to revisit this thread after listening the latest episode of Brew Strong. The method that I use is the same method covered in that episode. I've been using this method to harvest the different strains of yeast that I brew with (about 5 of them) for 8 months or so now. I have had excellent results and honestly agree with Jamil and Palmer that the batches that I make from my 2nd, 3rd and 4th harvests are better than the batches brewed with freshly pitched yeast or first harvests. I know that some here state that they have better results by culturing their yeast and never harvesting, and that's fine, but because of my results I don't think I will be culturing and will continue harvesting. I believe that the yeast become acclimated to your brewing environment and perform better.

I also thought I'd share some advice and experiences that I've ran across

1. Depending on how you store your harvests, how soon you reuse then, what you are brewing with them, and how sanitary your collection procedures are will really determine how many times you can harvest them. I did an experiment with my old house ale (my cascade ale) and successfully harvested and reused the same yeast 7 times. But, I was brewing my cascade ale about every other week and I kept brewing the exact same beer with the harvest. I haven't gone past 4 recently, just because I really have been brewing a larger variety of beers and may not get back to the same strain for over a month. And, when I do, I rarely brew the exact same beer.

2. I don't wash my yeast …. I rinse them. I used to call it washing, but I have since change my wording. Washing would involve the use of an acidic solution to kill bacteria, but not the yeast cells. I was planning on picking up some phosphoric acid with my next order, but if you are only harvesting the yeast a maximum of 4 times and have really concentrated on your sanitary collection procedures the amount of bacteria that would build up should be so minimal that the yeast should easily overcome them and no off flavors will be detected in the beer brewed with them. If you are worried about the bacteria affecting the flavor of your beer and want to do acid washes on your harvests to eliminate it, I wouldn't recommend harvesting your yeast.

3. Don't use old harvests. I wouldn't recommend using yeast from a harvest that is over 3 months old. If you do happen to find an older harvest and you really want to use it, I would recommend growing it up (2 to 3 step ups in your starter) then rinsing it again to try to eliminate all the dead yeast cells in that harvest. After 3 months there is only about a 10% viability and personally, I really don't want to pitch all those dead cells in my fresh wort.

4. Always try to re-pitch from lower to higher whatever; Gravity, IBU, SRM, etc. My really hoppy beers I try to use my 4th harvests or just because I don't have to worry about them after that.

5. Pitch the right amount of yeast. This took me some time to get down. I have taken some advice away from other posters here, but the best tool that has really allowed me to dial this one in was the Mr. Malty's Pitching Yeast Calculator. I highly recommend using it if you are planning on harvesting and reusing yeast.

6. Never harvest yeast from a bad batch of beer. I've under pitched a time or 2 and fermentation hasn't kicked off as quickly as I would have liked and because of this, I have had off flavors at bottling / kegging time. No need to take a change trying to harvest on those batches. Let's face it, after 50+ batches, using the same strains of yeasts, you should have a general idea on the taste based on the fermentation temperature and ingredients that were used.

7. Always make a starter for your harvests. Even if it nothing more than a 4 hour starter to wake up a harvest that was done a couple days ago. For those older harvests, you really need to get that yeast cell count up. You want a nice, quick, active fermentation and always want to be pitching the right amount of yeast for the batch you are planning to brew. In some cases, you may need to step up your starter, just to get your cell count up. Also, I always use yeast nutrient in my starters. Nutrient is used for more than just food for your yeast, it will help grow stronger, healthier cells.

8. Taste your starter beer. Always taste it (and do it before you start brewing), either some of the decanted beer (if you are decanting) or a bit of it before you pitch. Obviously, the starter beer is going to taste different that your fermented beer, but it will always taste the same for the strain you are using.

9. Keep a good inventory of your harvests. You really need to know what harvests came from what batches and how old they are so that they can be reused properly.

For those that want to give harvesting a try, I hope this helps. I am a firm believer that sanitation, yeast and those first 2 to 3 days of fermentation that are the most crucial parts of making great beer. Good luck and happy brewing!

All good advice. For #3 I label my little mason jars with a harvest date. At 3 months, if I still want the yeast, I simply do a 1L starter and re-harvest.

I'm also really digging harvesting from vials over trub too. No need to wash or worry about odd bugs getting in. I just do a 1 Gal starter out of any WLP vial before use and divvy it up into mason jars. When I get down to the last jar, I repeat the process.

Great info new2brew! Thank you.

Great advice!

I am trying work the kinks out of my own yeast harvesting method. As soon as I get the right DME:Agar ratio, I will be good to go. I have currently a wyeast Belgian Wheat yeast on petri plates in the lab's incubator; but the agar was waaay to soft. I hope that my next batch of plates will be much firmer and more suitable for long term storage.

This was very informative. Thanks for posting....might give it a shot myself at some point.

Well, I haven't updated this thread in a while, so I guess it's time.

It's now officially been over a year since I've bought any yeast. I am now a firm believer that experienced yeast make better beer. I still have plenty of harvests for my Irish, British, and German ale strains, both frozen and not, that I shouldn't have to buy them for years. But, my American ale strain may only last me another year, so I'm going to have to buy another package of my Chico Strain sometime next year. Total savings to date is about $360.

The oldest harvest I've brought back, that wasn't frozen, was 8 months old. Took a week to get activity in the starter and ended up having to step it up 3 times just to get a pitchable amount. I did decide to do an acid wash on it. No issues with the beer that was fermented with it, but in the future, I will just pitch any harvests out that are that old. Just too much work to bring it back.

Next revisit will be when I wake up a strain that will have been frozen for a year. Then, I'll go through the procedure I use for freezing my yeast.

Thanks for the update, New2...
You must keep some good notes on Yeast age and batch numbers. Do not think I am up to the task.

Wow this is ironic, I was just reading up on creating slants today! keep us posted as this is a great way to keep a viable supply of your favorite yeast on hand and not rely on UPS and a damm ice pack! I've got two vials sitting in a 100 degree plus warehouse this weekend...14 bucks wasted!

Yeast have become my obsession in this hobby. I think maybe because when I started into this hobby, I knew nothing about how they can contribute to the flavor of a beer. I just thought yeast was yeast and it took me till my 8th batch to figure it out.

I have also found that they are a lot tougher than people think. I've always said that I have 4 strains… my German Ale, Irish Ale, British Ale and, of course, my American Ale yeast. But, I really had 5. I had a package of Wyeast 2007 Pilsner yeast in the back of the frig. It's mfg date was March 2008. I smacked it 4 weeks ago and about 1 and 1/2 weeks later, it started to swell. I threw it in a starter and stepped it up once, then washed and harvested it. I just put it in my gallon starter jug today and will step it up a couple times so that I can brew a pilsner with it this weekend.

I was surprised that a smack pack that was 17 months old had enough viable yeast in it that I could grow it up and use it.

do you use a stir plate for your big starters? or do you oxygenate them? a gallon is alot for my lil stir plate, but I suppose it just needs to turn over the liquid. a swirling vortex isn't all that important

I think I posted my homemade stir plate. I'm going to have to find it and update this post later. And, yes, I use it all the time. I have 2 stir bars. One for my 1L starter flask and 1 for my 1 gal just that is a bit larger. I don't go for the vortex; I just make sure I'm turning over the liquid on the surface. And no, I haven't purchased an oxygen tank and a stone yet. I have had such good luck without them; I really don't think that I will. But, I don't use an air lock on my starters, just a piece of foil over the top. I'm a firm believer that germs don't fall up.

I like the vortex. It is probably completely fictional but I get the feeling that if it's deeper, the liquid is turning over at a higher rate.

No airlock for me either. You want the yeast to be in a stress free environment and really boom in that exponential growth phase. An airlock puts too much head pressure. I've even heard Chris White and Jamil talk about not even using airlocks on fermenting beers until after high krausen.

N2B,

Thanks a lot for your great contribution to the wider dissemination of knowledge on homebrewing with harvested yeast. I am thinking of trying something similar for one of my future recipes, and wanted to get some advice or suggestions.

I see you've tried it pretty extensively with harvesting from your own work, but have you ever tried it with yeast from a finished product, say a commercial German Hefeweizen or a Belgian?

I made the Mr. Beer Abbey Dubbel a while back and I liked it, but it wasn't quite "right." Several on this board suggested yeast was the missing component. (I used the standard Mr. Beer dried yeast.) Any additional suggestions or experience on pulling from a bottle of, say, Chimay or Gouden Carolus, or does the process work pretty much the same way? Or is there a threat someone can point me to on this that I overlooked?

Thanks again for the great pictoral and your comments on this subject.

I answered my own questions with a little more poking. Here's the link below for anyone else who's interested as well.

http://www.mrbeerfans.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=27701#Post27701

Sorry for the late response but glad you found jkarp's post. That's the one I would have pointed you to. Only thing I'd advise is it to make sure your sanitation is spot on when you harvest, either from your own bottles or commercial unfiltered / unpasteurized bottles. If you can, sterilize where ever possible.

What I've discovered over my homebrewing journey is that it's all a numbers game. There will always be a certain amount of bacteria that will make it into every batch. As long as the yeast can out compete the bacteria then you won't even notice that they are there. It's when you give them a head start by pitching yeast that already has a high bacteria count that you will run into troubles.

I currently do plate tests on all the yeast I reuse (Which reminds me. I need to get some pics and post my plating procedures). I'll use the yeast as long as the bacteria count is 3% or less. I've used yeast with the bacteria count being as high as 5%, but at that point it affects the final flavor of my finished beer.

If you do continue down this path of harvesting and reusing yeast, I highly recommend reading up on plating and storing your harvests on slants.

Mein Beagle hilft mir Bier brauen!

Wilson, do you have anything to do with this?

I ask because that is clearly a howling beagle.

No, it looks like a clear case of Copywrite infringement.
Cute little pup though.

i really want to do something like this for my porter; liquid English ale yeast, but i cant seem to wrap my head around it.....

dozer, there re some reallt good Brewing Network shows on yeast harvesting and yeast rinsing... especially episodes of Brew Strong. check them out if you're having trouble understanding... this is a really complex process, which is why a lot of people never try it lol

http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/

Indeed, what do you do? do you add the water/yeast into wort after brewing?

I know this is a really late response to this question, but I've kinda been out of commission for the past 6 months. Saw the post and, since it was on one of my posts, decided to answer it.


As far as what to pitch, all the yeast will settle to the bottom of the container that you use for harvesting in 3-5 days. Just pour off the water, leaving a little water in the container so you can get the yeast that has settled to the bottom back into solution so you can easily pitch it.


Harvesting really is not that difficult and I've been doing it for 3 years now. I have added a few QC procedures just to check for contamination but if you are only doing 2 or 3 harvests, never let them sit for more than a week, and always pitch the correct amount of yeast, it's really hard to mess up a batch.

Different yeast strains store better than others, but I highly recommend using starters with any of your harvests and if you find it necessary to use a harvest that's over 4 months old (I'd recommend tossing it and going back to your slant or just buy more yeast), step it up several times and taste your starter beer just to make sure you are not growing up a bunch of bacteria with your yeast.

It's all a numbers game. You can't eliminate all the bacteria but you can sure overwhelm them! And one more piece of advice ... rinse your yeast, don't wash it. If you feel it's necessary to use an acid wash on your harvests to kill the bacteria, don't use it and start with new.

as far as how much to pitch, the mrmalty.com calculator is a pretty well accepted source of this information. I got to try it out after my first ever liquid yeast ranching experiment about a week ago, and the beer has been chugging along nicely (got the recommended mL amount of slurry pretty close after a simple starter before pitching)

I gotta say, I don't even go through all those steps to harvest. All I do is add spring water to the trub after bottling and pour all the "stuff" into a mason jar. By the time I'm ready to use it, the yeast has settled into a nice layer on top of the trub. At pitch time, I pour off the liquid, and add the yeast layer with as little stuff as possible. No starter. Works everytime with no off flavors, in fact it really does seem to get better after the first batch.

Is it the best method, maybe not. But I've had good results using this method.

that is all that matters with whatever we decide to do!

does anyone have the pics from the OP on this? Thinking about doing this to save money but would like his pics!! I know I saw them a couple months ago

maybe something like this?
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/Washing_yeast

so I can follow that guide with the yeast from my last batch and store it for future use?

for a week or two (for wheat yeasts)... maybe a month or two at the most (for other ale yeasts) from what i've read/heard... lots of brew strong podcasts about harvesting/washing/storing yeast.

the guy that posted that guide said he used yeast that was almost a year old (with a starter of course).

... and an episode of brewing tv where dawson washed some yeast. more visuals!

Brewing TV - Episode 47: iSoloBrewMaster from Brewing TV on Vimeo.

ill check that vid out tomorrow!! thanks

I didn't realize wheat yeast had such a short life. I bottle harvested some from Hoegaarden a while back and propagated it, but only made one batch with it. I guess I need to dump the rest.

Yeah supposedly the wheat yeasts mutates fairly quickly when it's in storage... Like I said, never done it myself... Just what I've heard on the BN.

Thanks for the info. That Ball jar is getting emptied tonight. Actually, the Red Tail Ale Ball harvested yeast jar is getting dumped as well.

hmmm...I grew and split and harvested (from a single smack pack) some wyeast 3068 that have been in use since the spring...haven't had an issue with it yet.

I just sanitized some mini jelly jars and keep it in there, then build up a starter and let 'er rip. zero issues to this point. maybe I'm lucky?

I did the same thing with Rogue's Pacman yeast...and I have noticed in my last 2 beers that it is giving a kinda funky flavor that I am not super happy about, but I chalked it up to not washing it fully (it has been harvested from LBK several times) before repitching. I have one "original" jar of the 1st generation of this yeast that I am going to try to revive and see if that helps. I'll report back in a month or so when I have the time/space to ferment with it

I've found that yeast stores fine for a really, really long time in the fridge, as long as you step it up properly with a starter. Yes, even wheat yeasts.

From what I remember from the brewing network podcast on the subject, it's more a matter of having enough viable cells...which is why properly stepping up a starter works fine.

I've just started washing my yeast. It's really a lot easier to do. than it looks. I have 3 diff yeast strains at the moment. But I think I'm going to narrow it down to two.

I've made 2 batches so far with the yeast. One batch ended with a really high FG (I think that was a result of my grist and not the yeast though). The second batch is fermenting away right now.

I am really happy with the process and idea of yeast washing. So far, my results have been less than stellar. Depending on how this batch finishes, it will change my mind.

Bob, please update when this batch finishes!!

hey Bob, which yeast are you using? and did you build up a starter prior to pitching?

I have started making a 3 quart starter from each smack pack or vial. Then I fill two 1/2 quart jars and top with sanitized foil. Store in the fridge until use.
That way I have a 1/2 gallon starter and two more samples that can be made into starters. I could split further from the samples but haven't from fear of mutations, ect. I may see how far I can push it some time in the future.

Will do! It's got another solid week, then a week of dry hopping, then I'll bottle. When I transfer for the dry hopping, I'll take a gravity reading.


I have harvested; S-05, S-33, and the Wyeast 1728 (Scottish).
I build a starter at least 5days prior. Although I'll be moving that to 6days I think.

I actually have really come to love S-33...and it's one of fermentis's cheapest! I do like 1768, though it's not all that clean for me--I get lots of phenolics, but they're quite tasty, with the right amount of conditioning.

And of course I love US-05, though I'm on the fence between it and Notty. Both are great, clean yeasts...though subtly different.

I really liked the 1728 in the Scottish. In fact, I plan on cultivating it into my house strain. (Funny what people like.)

I prefer the S-33 over the S-04. For me, the 04 never attenuated well. The 33 has always been a hungry beast.

And 05...well. It's 05. I don't know what more can be said about that.