I've been doing this for a while, but finally got my first infection from recycled yeast. The yeast from the starter (Parent strain cellarscience English- an S-04 clone) seemed very healthy, and fermented very vigorously with almost no lag, but a couple days after it was done I got a white pellicle on top of the beer. That pellicle looked like an alien invasion out of a sci-fi movie, so my otherwise healthy yeast picked up a hitchhiker somewhere. I'm looking at all the things I may have done wrong. I used a loosely sealed jar full of trub, left it in the fridge too long, and opened it too many times. When I made the starter it was in a sanitized jar, but that ja was only covered with a sanitized dishtowel- enough to keep out bugs, but not enough to keep everything else out. Now I'm rethinking my whole process. Instead of jars, I'm going to use bottles. They will be sealed a lot better and handled a lot less while in the fridge. For the batch I'm brewing now, instead of waiting for the trub and pouring it into a jar, I drew off a bottle (my fermenter has a spigot) while the beer was churning away in the super-active phase of fermentation. That bottle is covered with rubber-banded, sanitized foil for now. When the ferment dies down it will be capped and go in the fridge with a label that says "yeast beer". Not as many cells as a trub cake, but I'm pretty sure that bottle is loaded with active yeast. I love the money I save, and I love the 4-5 hour lag time as opposed to waiting a day and wondering if the yeast was dead until it finally kicks in, but I don't want to go through another infection again.
Good luck! Yeah, infections suck! I had an infection several years ago that carried over to the following batch. I spent extra time and effort cleaning and sanitizing equipment, and tossed some stuff. Luckily the next batches came out great.
Very interesting. I have a bucket cold crashing right now; if I wanted to save the yeast to build a starter like you would I simply drain the beer as I usually would and save a small portion in a mason jar with some beer and place In a fridge? Does the mason jar need to be sanitized inside and out?
I did not cover the actual harvesting part much in the video. I try to leave a thin layer of beer and swirl that with the yeast in the fermenter. Sometimes it comes nicely out of my spigot, and sometimes I have to pour it out. I have also scooped out slurry with a sanitized measuring cup. Make sure your jars and lids are are cleaned and sanitized. My general rule of thumb is 1) direct pitch into a new batch if 4 weeks or less old, 2) spin up in a starter if 1 to 4 months old, 3) verify with a starter if older than that. I often just pitch jars of yeast that are old, but this batch shows that older yeast still works well.
@@ThegoatbirdmanI have had success with a pack of yeast 1 year past the expiration date, but I also had a ~2 year old yeast that did not revive. I would recommend starting with a smaller low gravity starter (say 300 ml at 1.030). If you get good activity from that, step it up to a 1L starter. A simple starter calculator for DME: www.morebeer.com/content/dme_calculator
There is some flexibility in the amount of DME used for a starter. 100g for a 1L starter makes a gravity of ~1.035. 3.5 oz in 1L would be the same. 3 oz in 1L would be closer to 1.030. In Imperial, I would use 3.3 or 3.5 oz in a quart (32 fl oz). 1.035 to 1.040 is what I have read for a good starter target (with a lower gravity wanted in some cases).
I am not sure what it works out with currency exchange, but I pay around $60 to $70 for a 25kg (55 lb) sack of base grain, and usually close to $3 per lb (450g) for specialty grains. I live is a fairly high cost of living area of the US, and prices are up quite a bit over the past 4 years.
@@CascadesHomebrew Part of the problem is that bulk rate start at the 50 and 55 lb sack. UPS, USPS and FedEx all consider those to be overweight packages and a safety hazard to handle. They will still deliver them, but not cheap. There is no cheap way to order bulk grains through the mail. To buy bulk grains you have to drive to the homebrew store and pick up the grains yourself. Stores can get freight shipment on pallets. Houses can't.
