Harvesting Yeast

I added a new step to my brewing process.  This last brew day I decided to experiment with harvesting my yeast.  I took pictures and wanted to explain my process for anyone wanting to try it.  So here we go.

I started by boiling all my containers (1 quart jar and 4 8oz jars) for 20mins and chilled the now sterile water in the jars in the fridge until the water was cool.

Once the water was cool I dumped the quart of water onto the yeast cake and swirled it around until everything was back in suspension and let it sit for 20 mins or so to allow the trub, yeast and liquid to separate out.

After the separation, I carefully poured this liquid back into my 1 quart jar trying as hard as I could to leave as much of the trub behind and put that in the fridge for another 20-30mins and discarded the trub.

Once this separated out again (no pic sorry) I separated it into the four smaller jars and put them in the fridge.

I left the little jars in the fridge while I brewed my next batch.  The picture above  shows the amount of separation over the course of several hours.  After about 12 hours, all of the yeast had settled out (again, no pic).

According to the Mr. Malty yeast pitching calculator, one of these little jars was enough to pitch into my next batch, a Red RyePA – 1.057 OG.

Fermentation started in less than 48hrs and once it started it was very strong.  I’ll also be using this same yeast in my next batch I plan on brewing this weekend – an American Pale Ale.

Cheers!