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Yeast Harvesting!

Do you harvest your yeast?

  • Yes, whenver possible.

    Votes: 11 39.3%
  • Sometimes.

    Votes: 11 39.3%
  • No, but I'm considering it.

    Votes: 6 21.4%
  • I have no interest in harvesting my yeast. I'd rather brew instead.

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    28
I'm not keeping yeast like that, but I have been canning two jars of excess wort from each brew and storing in my keg fridge. 

I just did a starter Friday using wort, and then re-started it yesterday again (for an altbier), and it's a joy not to have to measure, boil, cool, and wait on DME to make a starter.  Just sanitize and mix.   
 
The one thing to look out for when using wort from a brewing session for your starters, as MaltLicker and I do, is to make sure you get the gravity correct.  I usually aim for about 1.035 gravity for my starters when making them up with DME.  I don't sweat it too much though, when using wort from a brewing session, even up to about 1.050 and still use it straight.  Once it's above that, I'll dilute it back down to 1.035-1.040 range.  I dilute it with the sterilized water from one of my mason jars that I used for yeast harvesting, so that I don't have to boil it again.  I usually end up boiling and canning sterilized canning jars about once a month for my yeast harvesting, so I always have this stuff on hand. 

For example:
1.  If I've got a wort of 1.060 that I want to preserve for future starters, I'll take down a 2 quart canning jar of sterilized water.  I'll pour out 2/3rds of it and fill back up to full with the sterilized wort.  This takes my gravity down to 1.040 and I have a half gallon of still sterilized wort to put in the refridgerator.

2.  If my wort is at 1.080, I'll only pour half of the water out and refill with wort.  Once again, I'm back to my 1.040 wort.  So if you're brewing a larger beer, that is in the 1.080 range, just plan ahead to have about 1/2 a gallon of extra wort going into the fermenter and pull that off and you can dilute it down by half and have a gallon of starter worts preserved in two different half gallon canning jars.

My problem is that I forget to plan ahead and I don't like taking wort from my batches for future starters, because then I'll less than full cases of beer going into my inventory.
 
I take the leftover wort from the mash, which is usually around 1.016, and add any post-boil wort I get, and take a reading.  Usually, it's close enough to 1.030-ish that I just boil it 15 minutes, and pour into two mason jars, and then seal up in the canner and pressure cook for 15 minutes.    If it's much lower, I will add the DME needed to reach 1.032 and then boil. 

I do mostly ales, and have a stir plate, so low-SG wort meets my cell count needs.  When I do hybrids or lagers, I would double start, or more likely bail and use two dry lager packages and rehydrate.  Much simpler and a tad cheaper. 
 
MaltLicker said:
I just did a starter Friday using wort, and then re-started it yesterday again (for an altbier), and it's a joy not to have to measure, boil, cool, and wait on DME to make a starter.  Just sanitize and mix. 

I got a warning that you had posted while I was typing.  I see now that you're canning sterilized wort!  I'm not going to alter my post much, since it might benefit others that would want to start harvesting wort for starters.  There are multiple ways to do this, and I think both ways are safe and effective.  In fact, your way is even safer than mine.

MaltLicker,
I wouldn't be comfortable doing what you do. I am comfortable now, after you posted while I was typing this.  I realize that your storing sterilized wort now. The way I view it, if you pour your wort into a sanitized jar, it is the same as waiting 24 hours to pitch your yeast into a batch of cooled wort when making your beer.  We'd never do that, preferring to get it going as soon as possible to keep the beasties at bay and make the yeasties happy.  I use the same philosophy for my stock of starter worts.  If I'm not going to create the starter immediately and I'm going to be storing it, it goes into a sterilized jar, not a sanitized jar.

I much prefer boiling canning jars in water and then pulling them out of the boil pot full of sterilized water and sealing them up for later blending with wort or just pouring some of the sterilized water out and replacing it with sterilized wort, compared to using my wort that was stored in jars that were only sanitized.  If I put my wort into jars that were only sanitized as opposed to sterilized and store it, I always end up reboiling it before using it, since it was only sanitized and not sterilized.  I'd prefer to boil water than boil wort, unless I'm making beer, of course

I'm just paranoid about infections I guess, although I've never had one that I know of, I'm sure I will eventually.  I've been told and heard that if you homebrew long enough, sooner or later you'll have an infection.  I just prefer to try and hold it off as long as possible.  It took me forever to come over from the dark side (chlorox for sanitation) to no rinse Star San.

 
MaltLicker said:
I'm not keeping yeast like that, but I have been canning two jars of excess wort from each brew and storing in my keg fridge. 

I just did a starter Friday using wort, and then re-started it yesterday again (for an altbier), and it's a joy not to have to measure, boil, cool, and wait on DME to make a starter.  Just sanitize and mix. 

that is a great idea.  Making a starter with DME is sort of a pain...do you pitch the whole starter?  I'm guessing you would but want to be sure
 
I don't know what MaltLicker does.  Are you asking if he pitches the yeast into the entire jar of wort?  If that is the question, I've been considering using a combination of half gallon and pint canning jars, so that when I make my starter I can use the correct combination of wort jars to get the size starter that I need for the brew I'm going to make.  Up until now, I've only saved wort in half gallon canning jars.  If I'm making a starter larger than a half gallon, I end up pouring out some of the wort and I don't like wasting it.  If I were to make a 3/4 gallon starter and had some of the wort in pint jars and some in half gallon jars, then I could mix and match to get the size starter that I needed for the beer I'm making, without wasting any saved wort.
 
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