Brewing Master

Question:

Two weeks ago I brewed a tasty IPA by culturing the yeast from the bottom of a couple of Redhook Ryes. When I transfered the batch into the secondary just over a week ago, I left the yeast cake sitting on the bottom of the primary (the airlock is still on), in my brew closet So can I try using this yeast slurry again after 2 weeks of it sitting there, or should I try some new yeast? I guess I figure if there are no visible colonies of something else growing on top, it should be OK. What do you think? Thanks, John S. Watson NASA Ames Research Center http://george.arc.nasa.gov/~watson HOMEBREW NAKED!

Response:

This is very intresting Watson.  Since I am new at home brewing, I suggest you  try to brew another batch using the same yeast cake.  This will probably  change the taste of the second batch but it is worth finding out if this will  work. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -gr<

Response:

John, I’ve re-used a yeast cake several times (from Wyeast yeast) with absolutely no problems – in fact, the beer ferments faster & starts quicker because you have so much more yeast. I usually "can" 2-3 qts of filtered water (boiled, and then boiled again in the qt jars) a day before racking to the secondary.  After racking, I dump half the H20, and then top up w/ yeast slurry from the carboy.  Pop the lid back on, and keep in the fridge (I’ve kept yeast this way for 3 months, and apparently you can keep it for over a year). In your case, I’d dump the slurry into a starter (perhaps in one of those huge wine bottles) and let it go for a day or so.  Then taste the starter to see if there are any signs of infection.  If not, dump into your next batch. If there’s a layer of beer covering the yeast, and the carboy has been covered, my guess is that your yeast cake is ok.  But I would use a starter just to make sure. Drew – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – When I transfered the batch into the secondary just over a week ago, I left the yeast cake sitting on the bottom of the primary (the airlock is still on), in my brew closet So can I try using this yeast slurry again after 2 weeks of it sitting there, or should I try some new yeast? I guess I figure if there are no visible colonies of something else growing on top, it should be OK. What do you think?

Response:

A related question: I’m going to try reculturing some Wyeast from the bottom of a bottle of my homebrew for the first time.  I was planning to dump the dregs from a 22 oz bottle into a starter, let it ferment out and taste the "starter beer" as I step up the starter.  If the starter beer tastes funny I’ll dump the starter to avoid using a contaminated culture.  The yeast in question is the Irish ale Wyeast (the number escapes me.)  Does anyone see any problems with this procedure, assuming proper sanitation is followed? Thanks, – Andrew For all you automated email spammers, here’s the addresses of the board of the FCC:

Response:

A related question: I’m going to try reculturing some Wyeast from the bottom of a bottle of my homebrew for the first time.  I was planning to dump the dregs from a 22 oz bottle into a starter, let it ferment out and taste the "starter beer" as I step up the starter.  If the starter beer tastes funny I’ll dump the starter to avoid using a contaminated culture.  The yeast in question is the Irish ale Wyeast (the number escapes me.)  Does anyone see any problems with this procedure, assuming proper sanitation is followed?

This is more or less what I do unless I’ve run out of bottles of the suitable yeast. It also works well with comercial live bottled beers. Make up a starter medium with light malt extract OG around 1.020 pour out ( and drink ) most of the beer from the bottle. Flame the top of the bottle and add 1/4 pint of the starter cover with cling film and put in a warm (68F?) area to get going after a couple of days you can then step up etc. If the beer you drank is sound then there should be no problem eith sanitation. I’ve yet to have a bad starter using this procedure in 10 years of recovering yeasts from bottles. I used dried before that and made starters in the usual way. — ‘ol heitir me(eth) manunum en me(eth) Assum bjor’ ‘Ale it is called among men and among Gods beer’ ( Old Norse from the Alvismal c950 ) Wassail Tony Barnsley

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