Was going to boil a gallon and store in fridge in mason jars for few days before racking beer. Will water stay sanitized for a few days that way? Trying to simplify my racking days so I don’t have to boil and chill water right before racking?
If you really want to simplify your day don’t bother washing your yeast it really doesn’t need to be washed. Just save some slurry in a sanitized mason jar.
^^^ This.
That is what I have always done but like idea of washing some of trub out of it. It’s worth a shot at least.
They’re right. It’s really not worth the effort. You’ll just wash away viable yeast.
Pour it into a mason jar and repitch it or better yet brew the same day you rack off, pour third to half of the cake into a mason jar and your new wort onto the remaining cake.
You guys are making me lazy. 
I’ve always “washed” the yeast, and never really minded the extra steps involved. However, I can see how it would simply the process to just save slurry.
At the same time, isn’t then harder to know exactly how much yeast you are using when you pull out some of the slurry to use for your next batch/starter?
Back to your question, it will be fine to boil your water beforehand and save it in the fridge. Boil the jars also. Use standerd canning procedure.
[quote=“Catch22”]I’ve always “washed” the yeast, and never really minded the extra steps involved. However, I can see how it would simply the process to just save slurry.
At the same time, isn’t then harder to know exactly how much yeast you are using when you pull out some of the slurry to use for your next batch/starter?[/quote]
My theory is that in that trub are some of the best yeasts that went in and did the job. The ones left are the lazy and the shirkers. :lol: actually what I used to do is save the slurry and refrigerate it and after it separated decant off the middle layer. Now I just pou off the cap of beer and shake up the rest prior to pitching and throw it all in. I use the calculation from Brewers friend to make sure I pitch enough,never had a problem.
THIS^^^ again. There is no benefit to yeast rinsing. It’s PITA and just one more place you can contaminate your yeast. For an in depth discussion, check out the thread “Just Say No To Yeast Rinsing” on the AHA forum.
We wash to get rid of microbes.
Yeast are microbes.
Therefore…
It’s not worth it…really.
It’s not worth it…really.[/quote]
That was my conclusion too. I’ll try just about any method I read about to see how it might work or improve things in some way. But when I tried yeast washing I had a hard time trying to come up with any advantage to using the technique. The only possible thing I could come up with is that maybe the yeast will last longer and still be usable if it is stored with trub removed, but that is just speculation. And it could just as easily be that the opposite is true. I did go so far as to test that, as I generally won’t store harvested yeast if I don’t intend to use it reasonably soon.
Well you could put it in a smaller jar and if looks nice. That’s something.
It’s not worth it…really.[/quote]
I concur…wholeheartedly. I’ve been repitching slurries (unwashed) since the 1980s, usually through multiple generations with no ill effects of any kind on flavor, and only one instance of any kind of performance issue when I uncharacteristically let too much time pass between brews before repitching…but then again, I would have had the same issue even if the yeast was washed. My own experiments with washing (like Denny’s) led me to the conclusion that there was absolutely no advantage whatsoever in doing so. And I agree that there is at least some potential for actually degrading the quality and performance of the slurry by doing so.
I made my first attempts at rinsing yeast a few years ago. Thought it was fairly successful. Three pictures attached. Pint jar of rinsed yeast from a few years ago. More recent photos of a quart jar just after pouring from the fermentor, no rinsing, and same quart jar two weeks later after the yeast compacted. Pint jar has about 100 ml of yeast, the quart jar 400mls. Water on top of the yeast in the pint jar. Beer on top of the yeast in the quart jar.
http://s292.photobucket.com/user/walars ... y&sp=falseEdited for clarity.
[quote=“flars”]I made my first attempts at rinsing yeast a few years ago. Thought it was fairly successful. Three pictures attached. Pint jar of rinsed yeast from a few years ago. More recent photos of a quart jar just after pour from the fermentor, and same quart jar two weeks later. Pint jar has about 100 ml of yeast, the quart jar 400mls.
I’ll have to work on inserting images. copy/paste link will go to the Photobucket pictures.
http://s292.photobucket.com/user/walars ... y&sp=false[/quote]Successful in rinsing the yeast, no doubt. But did it result in better beer when you repitched?
Poorly worded my post. I don’t rinse anymore, just pour from the fermentor. Only the pint jar has rinsed yeast. Pouring from the fermentor results in more yeast saved and less work.
Edited my first post to clarify.
