Splitting Yeast « Brew UK Forum

Splitting Yeast

1 year ago | Hamish (Moderator)

I'm planing a couple of wheat beers, one for this weekend and another the weekend after. I'm going to propagate the yeast upto 2 litres then split, pitch one half and store the other.

Do I syphon off the fermented wort before storage? and should I be unable to brew, how long can I keep the yeast in the fridge?. :-)

Planning: Wheat beer fermented with Schneider Weisse yeast, a Stout, lots of hoppy pale ales
Fermenting: Summer pale ale
Maturing/Conditioning: Marynka pseudo-lager
Drinking: Wheat beer, ESB, Vienna lager & shop bought stuff

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Responses

Tony:

Posted 1 year ago by Member

Hi Hamish
I'd keep the yeast in the (under the) wort through storage and then when ready to use, pour out the wort, wash with a little boiled and cooled water and then pitch into a starter wort.

I heard that you should be ok storing like this in the 'fridge for up to 6 months.

This is a great run-down of how to go about it.
SPLITTING

Beer will get you through the times of no money better than money will get you through the times of no beer
(with grateful thanks to the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers and slightly adapted)

Hamish:

Posted 1 year ago by Moderator

Cheers matey.

Hamish:

Posted 1 year ago by Moderator

I've split the 3068 Weihenstephan 4 ways after propagating it to 2 litres. Pitched a litre which is now bubbling away furiously and divided the rest between 3 pop bottles.

Now of course I wished I'd divided it up further.

Is there any reason why I can't split the split.

Tony:

Posted 1 year ago by Member

Hi Hamish, good work!
No none at all - and there's no reason why you need to do it now. I'd keep what you have and then when you bring one out to make up your next starter, do it then.

Keep a record of the date on the bottle, the strain and how many times you've split it. The yeast mutates over a period of time/use so I wouldn't do it more than half a dozen times. Each one should be ok in the 'fridge for 6 to 8 months. I saw on Horden's site that when he made up his starter, he smelled and tasted the wort before so that he was sure there were no infections.

I harvested the yeast from my whiteshield yesterday, it's great fun this playing with yeast

Beer will get you through the times of no money better than money will get you through the times of no beer
(with grateful thanks to the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers and slightly adapted)

Hamish:

Posted 1 year ago by Moderator

Thanks Tony, when I first read about propagating your own yeast I thought it looked like a pain in the @r$e and decided I would just buy fresh each time but there really isn't much to it.

I see Weihenstephan do special bottling yeast, is the Whiteshield the proprietary strain?.

Tony:

Posted 1 year ago by Member

Yes indeed, I've only started doing it myself for exactly the same reasons.

I'm given to believe that the whiteshield is the original fermentation yeast, but I'm really not that big a fan of whiteshield anyway so I'm really only doing it to 'get my hand in'. I've always thought the beer has a 'blue-cheese' thing going on and I'm not a fan of blue cheese

I think that T.E.A has the original yeast in it so I may well try that next.

The sky's the limit

Beer will get you through the times of no money better than money will get you through the times of no beer
(with grateful thanks to the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers and slightly adapted)

mik webb:

Posted 1 year ago by Member

i agree - i have reused my fullers esb 68 yeast several times and it makes such a difference to the recipe kits on here - and its very cost effective - thats a saving of 6 quid everythime i use it - i guess i'm probably at the point that i will need fresh yeast soon - maybe two more goes with it!!!!!

Tony:

Posted 1 year ago by Member

Good work Mik, my next one is the fullers, heard lots of good things about it.

Someone has cast doubts on the pedigree of whiteshield and I now know that T.E.A uses S-04 as a bottling yeast, so no point doing that (not that it would have been easy anyway as Hogs Back have stopped bottle conditioning!)

They something on the bottle like 'Now brewery-conditioned so there's none of that nasty sediment in the bottle'. Are they MAD?

Beer will get you through the times of no money better than money will get you through the times of no beer
(with grateful thanks to the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers and slightly adapted)

Nath:

Posted 1 year ago by Moderator

hey something on the bottle like 'Now brewery-conditioned so there's none of that nasty sediment in the bottle'. Are they MAD?

YES

Drinkin' - nowt, it's all gone

Plannin'-
Loads a beer after an upgrade!

nathbrew@gmail.com

Hamish:

Posted 11 months ago by Moderator

Hi Hamish. I've been splitting the yeast for a while and, maybe it's me doing something wrong, but I have found the 2nd generation split seems really slow to get going in the FV. I usually split the pack into 4 as above and after using 1, I let the other 3 ferment out. These seems OK, but if I split 1 of them into 4 again, the resulting yeast seems often to take 48 hours to get the ferment going in the FV. If I split a 3rd time, it's even worse, 72 hours.
I'd be very interested to see how you get on and maybe you can see what I'm doing wrong.

I made up 2 litres of wort, pitched the yeast and let it ferment out. Got all the yeast back into solution, pitched a litre into the brew then split the remaining litre 3 ways.

I intend to do the whole process again with the last of the previous split. Its 3068 which is usually very vigorous and its going to be fermented at 20°C.

I'll let you know how it goes.

saracen:

Posted 11 months ago by Moderator

Thanks Hamish. I think I'm propogating more than you, as I'm using 4.0 lts to split 4 ways, giving a full 1.0 lt for each. I often make the 1.0 lt split up to 2.0 lts and pitch after 24 hours. Keep us informed.

If you're not living on the edge..... you're taking up too much space!!

Planning: - To get some more brews on now the weather's a bit cooler
Fermenting: - Ginger Beer experiment
Conditioning: - A normal bitter with Styrians
Drinking: - All of it!!

E-mail: arnyfris@gmail.com

Greg:

Posted 11 months ago by Admin

72 hours to get going is a pretty big lag time and would suggest under pitched yeast Saracen. You may need a bigger starter. Ideally 24 hrs max lag.

saracen:

Posted 11 months ago by Moderator

Yes, Greg. Couldn't agree more. When I pitch a 1.0 lt fresh yeast it's away in a few hours, but when it's propogated in 1.0 lt batches, made up to 2.0 lts 24 hours before pitching, you seem to get this big time lag, which gets worse with every new split batch. I really can't think why this should be. Surely a fully fermented 1.0 lt batch made up to 2.0 lts a day in advance should be more than enough. I think I'll try leaving the starter 3 days next time.

Hamish:

Posted 11 months ago by Moderator

If you find yeast a fascinating subject you're going to waste hours looking at this website...

http://www.ncyc.co.uk/

You have to register to get full access.

saracen:

Posted 11 months ago by Moderator

Ok Hamish. Fascinating, yes..... but not quite that fascinating.
It looks interesting, though. Might work out what's going wrong for me.

Hamish:

Posted 11 months ago by Moderator

Made the starter last night, took just over 2 hours to start working. I think I might have to skip maturing and bottle this next brew straight from the fermenter as I've only 2 bottles of wheat beer left.

saracen:

Posted 11 months ago by Moderator

Hi Hamish. How did you make the starter? Was it just the normal 100 gms of DME in 1.0 lt?

Hamish:

Posted 11 months ago by Moderator

Yep, 100g per litre.

saracen:

Posted 11 months ago by Moderator

So what's going wrong with mine? The starter usually works ok. It's when I pitch it that it goes wrong.
Lots of headscratching to do now.

Hamish:

Posted 11 months ago by Moderator

I'll let you know how it starts after I pitch it into the brew, Sunday if all goes to plan.

Hamish:

Posted 10 months ago by Moderator

Pitched the yeast around 10pm, the shed was boiling hot so didn't get cracking until it had cooled down late this afternoon.

Hamish:

Posted 10 months ago by Moderator

Checked it at 8 this morning and it was happily bubbling away, in fact I think it might be a touch more vigorous than before but that could be down to the temperature.

If it erupts like Eyjafjallajökull I might video it.

Have to say I was a bit nervous about splitting the split, 72 hours is a long lag time.

saracen:

Posted 10 months ago by Moderator

Hi Hamish. I have to be doing something wrong. I think it might be in the time from making the starter to pitching it. I'll leave it longer, about 4 days, next time and see what happens. I'm having a BrewDay next weekend, so I'll get one on the go with 2.0 lts on Wednesday and we'll see.
Glad your's is off so well.

Hamish:

Posted 10 months ago by Moderator

I let the starter finish fermenting before its pitched. I can't see why you get the lag time?, unless the yeast hasn't had enough time to fully multiply.

saracen:

Posted 10 months ago by Moderator

I think that's what it is, Hamish. Being too hasty, that's the problem. I've told so many people to take your time, be methodical.... and then go and chuck it when it comes to my own! On the plus side, that last brew with the long lag time is going in the barrel today. I call it 44 Magnum. Bittered to IBU 40 with Magnum with 90 min boil, then Citra to IBU 44 with 5 minutes boil, then dry hop with 15 gms of Citra. Lifted the lid.... it smells L-O-V-E-L-Y!!

saracen:

Posted 10 months ago by Moderator

Hi Hamish. The current brew is underway and this time it's with Wyeast 1968 on its 2nd split. I made the starter to 1.5 lts 72 hours before, pitched at 21.5°c and within 9 hours there was a layer of yeast on top, the FV lid was pressurised but there are no bubbles in the airlock yet. All seems OK and the more I think about it, the more I'm coming round thinking the last batch, Wyeast 1056, was either dodgy or became contaminated.

Splitting Yeast

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