Went down to the brew room this morning to prep two fermentors for yeast harvesting. Inventoried my yeast since I was getting low on empty pint canning jars. Decided to dump 8 of the pint jars.
Will probably only add back two jars of harvested yeast. Sometimes being a saver can become a problem.
Edit: Sniffed and tasted each one as I dumped. No off aroma and tasted like the beer the yeast was harvested from. WY 1056 from the Dead Ringer had the best hop flavor.
Impressive!
Now I don’t feel so bad. I culled mine recently also. Kind of a walk down memory lane
I only have 3 and they’re all SAF-05
Got some WLP007 cooking though.
On the next episode of “yeast hoarders”…Mrs. Flars stages an intervention for Frank.
No way. Far from it! A few years ago she bought me a refrigerator for my brew room to further enable my obsession with saving yeast.
I hear ya. My wife loves that I stay in the basement
And I thought that I was an obsessive hoarder…
flars, you are the KING!!!
So, how big is this, one said yeast fridge? Sneezles61
It’s a full size Danby without a freezer compartment. I think it’s 7.1` cf. Not just for yeast. Also chills beer, keeps a supply of summer sausage and herring, hops soon to be used, and some soda pop for Wife.
Guess I’m a piker. All I have in the fridge is a few packets of dry yeast. I do tend to use the same yeast over and over until I’m nervous about using it again then buy fresh. Did that with Kveik over the winter until the last starter didn’t take off so well so I poured it out.
My planned harvest from two fermentors didn’t work out to well yesterday. I had bottled the Chinook IPA on 3/31 and then did other stuff including two weeks in Georgia. I sniffed the fermentor after getting every thing ready for the harvest. Didn’t smell like beer and hops. Poured out a pint and it smelled worse. Decided to dump the yeast.
I’ll add water to the fermentor to make the leftover yeast easy to pour down the kitchen sink. As I poured a slimy white trail with large translucent bubbles formed inside the fermentor.
Perhaps I left the fermentor open too long after racking to the bottling bucket. I’ve been drinking the beer. It’s great so the infection was not in the fermentor before racking.
The fermentor is getting a bleach shock treatment.
The WY 1332 harvested today smells like a very yeasty Caribou Slobber. I’ll refrain from chilling this yeast for a few days to see if anything unusual develops to confirm my racking equipment is free of any contamination.
I know this topic recurs, but here we go again, as the answers change with time and different Brewers on the forum:
What is the oldest stored yeast you have used and if you revived it first before pitching, how?
(I ask this because the third tray down in our fridge is starting to look like @flars Danby!)
withdrawn duplicate
I’ve used yeast as old as a year. Just have to plan ahead and propagate it appropriately.
My 001 is close to 6 months old… I’ll be reviving that tomorrow AM… Will brew Sunday… I think I saw some cream ale yeast in there from last summer too! Sneezles61
Gonna revive a couple week old Safale 05 tomorrow for its 3rd go round brew Sunday or Monday.
